


Another Chance, For Real This Time

by StillFeelLikeATeenager



Category: One Tree Hill
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:46:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 56,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22661215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StillFeelLikeATeenager/pseuds/StillFeelLikeATeenager
Summary: What You Need To KnowCommences when Peyton goes to Lucas’ house a few days after Dan Scott’s basketball party and everything is canon to then, except that nobody knows Brooke and Lucas have already had a date and Nathan and Haley aren’t dating at all. This is what happens when you think ... what if, when Peyton sees Brooke in Lucas' bedroom in S1, Ep 9, and she says "I made a mistake," she realises that she did indeed make a mistake, but walking away from Lucas at the basketball party wasn't it.
Relationships: Peyton Sawyer/Nathan Scott
Comments: 3
Kudos: 26





	1. I Made A Mistake

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've got 3 or 4 longer works in progress, nearly all Nathan/Peyton but there's too much left to write on them to start posting, so I dug out this old one and moved it round a bit and voila! Mainly shorter chapters, and only 13 of them all up.

She waits for a moment, draws in a calming breath – okay, so it’s meant to be a calming breath, but who is she kidding, really? Then squares her shoulders, raps her knuckles against the glass just once and pushes the door open.

“Peyton?”

“I heard about Nathan.”

What? Why did she say that? That’s not why she came.

“Yeah, he’s gonna be okay,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck in an awkward way, while something like relief floods through her. She’d wanted to check in with Nathan but figured it was all just too … messy. Too much. “So… what’s up?”

“Lucas, I made a mistake. When you said you wanted to be with me. I got … I got scared, but …”

“Peyton,” he interrupts, still looking awfully awkward, but she stops him, holds her hand up, has to get this out before she loses her nerve completely. She’s been a mess for the last few days, even more so since whatever the hell Nathan was up to happened.

“But the truth is, I want all the same things that you want,” she rushes out. “I do. And I want them with you.”  
He looks at her, and there’s a long moment where she thinks time’s either stopped completely or sped up beyond all comprehension.

“Okay, superstar, are you ready to score?”

Brooke. In Lucas’ grey sweatshirt?

Wait. What? Brooke? 

“Hey… we missed you after the game tonight,” the brunette says to her.

“Yeah,” she responds, looking between them, the so-called genuine, sweet guy and her so-called best friend. “I just … I guess I just kind of got turned around.”

She turns, presses her hand against the door to push it open.

“Peyton …”

“You know what?” she says, spinning back around. “Maybe it’s not _me_ that got turned around. Maybe it’s _you_ , Lucas. Or maybe it’s _you_ , Brooke. So much for Lucas being different!”

“P. Sawyer …”  
“ _Now_ I get it!” Peyton cries, railroading over the top of Brooke’s wheedling voice. “ _Now_ I know why you were so damned keen to get Nathan and me back together, Brooke. Making out you believed we were meant to be together and it was in my best interests? You were just being selfish the whole time, with one eye on when the - what was it? – when the ‘courtesy hold’ came off? So much for Hoes over Bros!”

“Peyton,” Lucas begins, “c’mon. You … you said …”

“Don’t waste your breath, Lucas,” she spits out, looking him up and down dismissively. “‘Cos trust me, you’re going to need all the oxygen you can get once Brooke gets you on that bed. You know? I was right; I _did_ make a mistake, but I didn’t make it the other night. I made it _tonight_.”

She stops, looks between them and hurls one last sentence at Lucas, with a disdainful curl to her top lip.

“Have a nice night … _player.”_

There’s a flurry of long limbs and bouncing curls and by the time the door bangs shut, she’s past the end of the footpath, striding toward her car.


	2. Somehow, he just always thought it would work out okay in the end

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He sits, staring at his phone for several long seconds. He’s not particularly tanned, Nathan. But Haley doesn’t think she’s ever seen him look this pale. In fact, she doesn’t think she’s ever seen anyone look this pale.

He won’t quite say he’s come to look forward to the tutoring sessions, or even that he enjoys them once he’s there, but he will say they’re not as bad as he thought they’d be. He will say Haley is a really good tutor: she manages to explain complex things in a way that makes sense to him; she almost makes it … well, not fun _exactly_ , it’s still school work, after all, and it will never really be his forte. But he’s making headway. And he’s seeing a lift in his grades; he’s even had two teachers comment that they’re pleased to see him making an effort, and that the effort is paying off.

He likes it best when they meet away from school - at the Market St place, or at the River Court. A change of scenery, especially if it’s outdoors, seems to really work for him. He tries to avoid tutor sessions on school grounds; it can’t be helped sometimes, if he must fit an hour or two in after practice, or if Haley has other students to work around, but usually he manages it. Tonight though, they’re at his house, his parent’s house. It’s cold and wet, unseasonably so for this early in the school year. He had a long practice and Haley couldn’t make it until after 7 anyway, so here they are - books and papers spread out on the large dining room table, going through his latest English essay. His teacher graded it in the early 70s, and he’s perfectly happy with that. Haley, though, is insisting that if they review it, he’ll do even better on the next one. He’s arguing that 70s is just fine, thank you very much. He doesn’t need to be on the honour roll. He needs to pass, and maybe get into the Bs overall. She’s about to argue further, when his cell buzzes. Again.

“Nathan, you really need to turn that thing off,” Haley complains. “We talked about this. You need to concentrate. That’s like … the fourth or fifth time it’s buzzed. Who is it?”

“I have to leave it on tonight; my Dad’s riding my ass about training again and he told me he’s calling tonight to see how practice was,” he explains a little apologetically. “If I don’t answer it, he’ll flip out … and I have no idea who’s calling,” he adds. “Don’t recognise the number. And I can’t help it if people call me … I’m not answering it, am I?”  
“No, but it’s distracting you anyway. Can you at least put it on silent or something?”

He mumbles a little but switches the phone to silent, asking her if she’s satisfied now and Haley says a sarcastic thank you and they get back to this English essay. Somehow, she won that argument too, and they _are_ reviewing it and, though he won’t admit it, he can see how he _could_ have done even better. And he will use the tips next time.

Haley eventually suggests they switch to calc for a while, and he suggests they get a snack and a drink, which she agrees with, but then rolls her eyes as his phone, though on silent, creates an insanely noisy rattle as it vibrates around in a circle on the table. It’s the same unknown - to him - number.

“Good grief, Nathan,” she moans, “I’ll get the drinks and snacks. Answer that damned phone and tell whoever it is to stop calling you.”

She heads to the kitchen, amazed, as ever, at the size of it and the incredible array of food and drinks in the fridge. Nathan answers his phone, but the caller has given up and he gets dead air.

“Can’t be that important if you couldn’t wait two more seconds,” he mumbles, tossing his phone back onto the table. Naturally, the second Haley resumes her seat it buzzes again. She raises an eyebrow impatiently; he holds his hands up in innocence and grabs the phone.

“Yep, speak to me,” he says into the phone, reaching for an apple.

Haley shakes her head at his cocky tone, but then looks puzzled as his next words are far warier.

“Yes, it’s Nathan,” he states carefully. “Who’s this?”

Something about his tone tells Haley he knows who it is, despite his question. Then, suddenly, he’s sitting straighter in his seat. She watches as his expression changes from his usual confident smirk to a cautious respect.

“Mr Sawyer? I …”  
“Yeah, I’m sorry. I didn’t recognise your number. Um … are you looking for Peyton? I haven’t seen her since school, actually since before lunch.”

“You do? Okay … so …?”  
“I’m at home.”  
“I guess … about ten minutes?”

Haley James is courteous girl, and she’s not an eavesdropper by nature, but Nathan sounds, and _looks_ , so confused that she can’t help but put her pen down and watch him as he speaks, then pauses while he listens, speaks again.

“If I stuck to the speed limit?” he asks warily. “Um … fifteen?”

“I’m not sure I understand, Mr Sawyer. Why do you want _me_ to come?” he asks with a completely bemused look on his face. “Wouldn’t it be better if I just try to find Pey …”

 _“What!?”_ he gasps out after a momentary silence, the colour draining from his face.

“I thought you meant _you_ were there,” he croaks, his voice catching in his throat. “I … what’s going on?”

“Oh God,” he whispers hoarsely, his free hand gripped into a tight fist on the tabletop, knuckles white and tendons taut. “But … what … is she …?”

“Okay. Um … yeah. I’ll go now. Um … what if they won’t tell me …?”  
“You can do that?”  
“Yeah. I … okay … yeah … I’ll talk to you soon.”

He sits, staring at his phone for several long seconds. He’s not particularly tanned, Nathan. But Haley doesn’t think she’s ever seen him look _this_ pale. In fact, she doesn’t think she’s ever seen _anyone_ look this pale.

“Nathan?” she eventually prompts. He lifts his gaze to meet hers and she gulps; his eyes are glassy, his neck and chin tight with tension, his skin still paler than pale and he’s clearly fighting for control with everything he has.

“Nathan, what _is_ it?”

He bolts from his seat without a word, knocking over his glass in the process. She races to the kitchen to grab a tea towel to soak up the liquid and hears him retching in the downstairs bathroom. She leaves the tea towel soaking up the water on the table, thankfully not too much, takes the glass and refills it, then hesitantly knocks on the bathroom door. It’s ajar and she pushes it open a little to more. He’s standing at the wash basin, leaning over it, splashing cold water on his face.

“Hey,” she says quietly, stepping hesitantly into the room and extending the glass to him.

“Thanks. Um … sorry. I …”  
“Nathan, what’s going on?” she asks, gently, her hand resting on his forearm for a moment.  
“Hospital,” he bites out.  
“Wh – what?”  
“I need to go to the hospital.”  
“That was Peyton’s Dad on the phone?” she asks, though she knows the answer. “Sorry, I wasn’t ….”  
“No, it’s okay. Yeah. I … I have to go …”  
“You can’t drive like this,” she says firmly.  
“I have to _go_ , Haley!”

“I’ll drive you,” she offers.

“No, I …”  
“Nathan, don’t be stupid. I’ll drive you,” she insists, firmly but kindly. “But … what’s going _on_? What did Mr Sawyer say?”

“I … she …”

“Nathan,” she says gently, resting her hand on his forearm again, somehow offering him her calmness.

“Peyton,” he says, lifting his eyes to meet hers. His worried, troubled, _pained_ eyes. “Peyton’s in the hospital.”  
“What happened?” Haley asks encouragingly. “What did her Dad say?”

“He doesn’t know much. He’s getting back as fast as he can, but it takes time. He’s out at sea … he …”  
“What happened to _her_?”

“Car accident. That’s all he knows. That she was in a crash, and that she needs surgery.”  
“You asked him what if they won’t tell you anything, didn’t you?”

“He’s sending them a signed authority so they will, so … if …”  
“If what?”  
“If a decision has to be made and they can’t reach him … fuck!”

He spins and thumps his open palm against the countertop.

“Okay,” she soothes, reaching out to grasp his arm and turn him around to face the doorway, “let’s get you there.”

She drives his SUV. He doesn’t say a word the whole way there; merely stares out the passenger window at the rapidly oncoming dark, and the rain. She throws him several concerned glances, and maybe he should try to assure her he’s okay, but he can’t. He _can’t_. Because he’s _not._

It’s Peyton. It’s Peyt. His … friend? Ex? He doesn’t like either of those words. She’s just … _her._ His first real girlfriend. The first, maybe the only, one that saw through his bravado. The first, maybe the only, one he _wanted_ to see through his bravado. The only one that ever called him on his shit, well, until Haley, but that’s different. The only girl that ever dumped his stupid ass, that’s for sure. And she did it repeatedly. Because he was a jerkoff to her. Repeatedly.

He can’t say he didn’t know what he had until it was gone, because he did. That’s why he’d said those things; missing her, wanting to be how they used to be, that they could be that way again. She must’ve thought it was too little, too late. But he’d _meant_ it. He knew what he had, alright. He just … somehow always thought it would work out okay in the end. Maybe he’d date a few other girls, maybe she’d date a few other guys, then … and maybe one of those girls would be Haley, and maybe one of those guys would be Lucas. But deep down, he thought it would work out in the end. For them. For him. And Peyt. Together. In the end. And now? Now … he doesn’t know what he’s going to walk into at the hospital. He doesn’t know if that end is a whole lot closer than he ever could have imagined.

He comes to, shaking himself out of his thoughts to realise Haley’s parking the car in the hospital carpark. She passes him the keys and they both open their respective doors and walk towards the hospital entrance. She stops outside, indicating towards the bus stop.

“What?” he asks her, confused, looking between her hand and the sign until he realises. “No, you can’t catch a bus home. It’s getting dark and …”  
“I’ll be fine,” she says. “Um … unless you need some backup?” she adds hesitantly, not clear to him whether it’s an afterthought or she just doesn’t know if he’d want her there.  
“I … thanks,” he says, shaking his head, “I think … no, I need to do this alone. But …” he grabs her hand and pulls her unceremoniously to a waiting cab. “You’re taking a cab.”  
“Nathan, no, I …”  
“Hush,” he says firmly, pulling his wallet out of his jeans pocket and handing some cash to the driver while he checks out the interior of the vehicle.

“What’s your address?” he asks Haley after deciding the car looks tidy enough. She tells him and he repeats it to the driver.

“Right,” he says to her. “I’ve got the driver’s registration number,” he says loudly enough that he knows the driver will hear. “You text me when you get home. And if I don’t hear from you within … how long will it take?”  
“Twenty minutes?”  
“Okay. If I don’t have a text from you within a half hour max, I’m calling the cops.”

“That’s a little dramatic,” she protests.

“Dramatic?” he repeats. “I’m about to walk into that hospital to see if she’s …”

“Yeah,” she interrupts. “Okay. Point taken.”

She opens the cab door then spins back around and pulls him into a tight hug.

“Let me know?” she asks him. “I mean, later on, when things are …”  
“Sure. Um … thanks for driving me, Haley.”

“You gonna be okay?”

“Absolutely no idea,” he shrugs, “but I guess there’s only one way to find out.”

He holds the cab door for her, gestures her in, closes it, attempts a smile through the window, then pats the car roof a couple times. Haley turns and watches out the back window as the cab wait for a space to pull out. Nathan doesn’t move for several seconds, then visibly steels himself, turns and walks into the hospital.

_Hi. I’m home safe & sound. Thank you for the cab & everything. How is she? _

_UR welcome. In surgery._

_You need anything?_

_Just for her 2B OK._

_She will be, I’m sure of it._

_That makes 1 of us._

_You sure you don’t want company?_

_Thanks. Need 2B alone. CU._


	3. “Just wondering why you’re here, I guess.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first thing she becomes aware of is that the bed she’s in is not her bed. It’s too hard. And the pillow is too flat. And the sheets are too … something.   
> The second thing she becomes aware of is that her hand is being held. There is a thumb locked around hers, and the heel of this other hand fits perfectly into her palm, and the palm of this hand is against the heel of her hand, and there are fingertips resting gently against the pulse at her wrist, and the skin is warm, but not too warm, and dry, but not too dry, and it’s calloused. It’s Nathan. She knows this without even looking.

The first thing she becomes aware of is that the bed she’s in is not _her_ bed. It’s too hard. And the pillow is too flat. And the sheets are too … _something_. 

The second thing she becomes aware of is that her hand is being held. There is a thumb locked around hers, and the heel of this other hand fits perfectly into her palm, and the palm of this hand is against the heel of her hand, and there are fingertips resting gently against the pulse at her wrist, and the skin is warm, but not too warm, and dry, but not too dry, and it’s calloused. It’s Nathan. She knows this without even looking.

In the back of her mind, she’s a little surprised because he hasn’t held her hand like this for a really long time. He used to. They’d sit across from each other, facing each other, and he’d align his palm with hers and lock his thumb around hers and hold her hand while she drew or read and he … well, he’d just watch her draw or read. And when she’d try to pull her hand away to turn a page (of the book, or of the sketch pad), he’d smirk and refuse to let go of her hand for even a second, until she negotiated the release. At first the negotiations involved a kiss. Then a few kisses. Then making out. But he hasn’t held her hand like that for a long time.

She takes a few more moments to get her bearings, figures out she’s in a hospital bed, in a hospital _room_ , in a freaking _hospital._ Then she opens her eyes.

His head is bent down over their locked hands. His other hand, his left, supports his chin, and his left elbow is near the edge of the bed. He may be asleep, or just thinking; she’s not sure as she can’t see his face. 

She finds herself doing a weird sort of head to toe mental check. Sore head - actually make that _really_ sore head. Sore wrist: not the one Nathan’s fingertips are resting against, the other one. Tightness in her chest that gets worse when she breathes, even though she’s intuitively careful to take very slow, shallow breaths. She expects they’ll tell her she’s got a busted wrist, a concussion and who knows whether her ribs are bruised, cracked or actually broken? She’s not in any hurry to find out about that, or the pain in her shoulder that is the worst of the lot; both stabbing and dull.

Her eyes return to Nathan and she watches him for a moment, still not sure if he’s awake or dozing. Even the top of his head looks tired; and he’s clearly been dragging his fingers through his hair a lot, as he does when he’s stressed or angry or confused or … just about any emotion that isn’t an even keel, actually. Anyway, his hair is a mess.

She allows her mind to flit over the events leading up to her being here; the hour before, the days before that, the weeks before that. And she wonders again why Nathan is here, and clearly has been for hours. Just as she’s about to squeeze his hand, her gaze and the change in her breathing registers with him, and he looks up, meeting her confused looking green eyes.

_She looks lost. She looks … oh fuck. She looks so confused. And his mind goes a little crazy, thinking it’s like in the movies. Amnesia. Or something. She can’t remember …_

“Hey,” he says gently, his hand tightening on hers just a little, almost imperceptibly. “It’s okay.” He reassures her. “It’s … I’m Nathan.”

She smiles a little, tries to shake her head but can’t because moving it, even a fraction, really hurts, and, to his concerned gaze, she now looks even more puzzled.

“Nathan Scott,” he adds.

“I know that, you idiot,” she retorts in a whisper. “Geeze!”

“Sorry,” he apologises, now looking a bit puzzled himself. “You looked ... confused. Like you didn’t know who I was.”

She moves her eyes to glance around the room, careful not to move her actual head.

“No,” she says very quietly, “just wondering why you’re here, I guess.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You know,” she replies with a tiny shrug of one shoulder, the shoulder that isn’t hurting like a bitch, “exes and all …”

He shrugs himself, tempted though he is to blurt out all sorts of reasons as to why he’s there. But … she just woke up and …

“So, hospital, huh?” she asks with a dry tone.

“Um, yeah … um … do you …?”  
“Remember what happened; the crash?”  
He nods, and she closes her eyes for a minute. More against the look on his face than the series of movie stills that run through her head when she thinks about a too-fast SUV coming out of nowhere and seemingly flying into the side of the Comet. Thankfully the passenger side.

“Yeah. Like ... the sound and the crunch and … metal … but not what caused it. I …. Oh God, was it _me_?” she asks, panic-stricken, wincing as her head thumps.

“No!” he exclaims swiftly. “No. The police will come back later, but there was a witness. It definitely wasn’t your fault.”

“Thank God for that,” she sighs. “So … what time is it? It feels … I dunno if it feels late or early.”  
“Yeah, that would be because you’ve probably never been awake at this time before,” he chuckles. “It’s 5.30.”  
“In the morning?”

“Yeah.”  
“Who knew this time really existed?” she says with a smile. “Other than you crazy guys that have running or extra basketball training with your insane fathers at this time, right?”

He laughs and then realises he really should let someone know she’s awake.

“I should get your doctor,” he says, though he shows no sign of actually moving.

“I guess … maybe …”  
“Peyt?”

“Just ... wait a bit?”  
“Sure.”

He doesn’t talk. And she doesn’t talk. And a companionable silence overtakes them for a while. 

He’s thinking mainly about how good it feels to be holding her hand again. He probably should be relieved that she’s awake, but the nurse had said she _would_ wake up, definitely; it was just a matter of _when_ , so he wasn’t really super-stressed about that. In fact, odd as it may seem, he had kind of enjoyed it being quiet, and peaceful and … just the two of them. He doesn’t really remember the last time that happened. Too long ago.

She’s thinking about how it is to have his hand holding hers again. Despite the aches and pains, she feels safe. With him. She doesn’t really remember the last time she had that feeling. Too long ago.

“Hey, Nate?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for …”

“Nope,” he insists, shaking his head.

“But …”  
“Nope.”

“Okay,” she smiles, smiling when he gives her that smug _I won_ look. “How did you …?” she begins. But he knows exactly where she’s heading and holds his hand up.

“Your Dad called me. He’s ... been back in touch a couple times since. He’ll be here tomorrow. He said … something about a tender? And transferring and … anyway, he’s getting here as fast as he can.”

“My Dad?” she asks a little incredulously. “ _My_ Dad called … _you_?”

‘Well,” he admits, knowing how much Larry Sawyer doesn’t like him and how weird it must seem, “he tried Brooke first, but she didn’t pick … shit. I should’ve called her … I’ll call her now …” he rambles, reaching into his back pocket for his phone.

“No!” she all but shouts then shrinks back into herself as her head thumps madly.

“No?” he asks, confusion etched on his wrinkled brow. “You don’t want me to call your best friend?”  
“Um … long story?”  
“I’ve got time,” he shrugs.

“I … I guess you’d better get the doctor fist,” she says reluctantly.

“Is that the famous P. Sawyer dodge?” he teases.

“No,” she frowns at his use of Brooke’s nickname for her. “It’s legit _I need pain killers for this monstrosity of a headache_.”

“Back in a minute,” he murmurs near her cheek, as he stands quickly and leans in to kiss her temple.

“Thanks.”


	4. “Who the hell are you and what have you done with my Nathan Scott-hating father?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m wondering if maybe I got that kid wrong,” her Dad says with a bemused look. “Or, if he’s not beyond redemption, at any rate.”  
> “We’re not together anymore, Dad.”  
> “So … last time I saw the two of you together, you were literally throwing things at him, heavy things too, but you insisted that you loved him. Now I come home, and it seems he’s been really rather wonderful, and you’re broken up? Despite the fact that, once upon a time in the dim, dark past I was one, I don’t think I’ll ever understand teenagers!”

Larry Sawyer arrives the next morning, and is filled in by Nathan, then, just as Nathan is saying that’s all he knows, a white coated doctor breezes into the room and they all find themselves being properly briefed by the consulting physician. Cracked ribs. Broken wrist. Mild concussion. Torn shoulder – not badly torn and the surgery went very well – but enough to keep Larry Sawyer’s daughter laid up in the hospital for 2-3 days before she goes home.

When the doctor leaves, Nathan stands, saying he’ll head home for a shower then on to school and leave the Sawyers to themselves. Larry thanks him for his efforts and Nathan flushes a little, nods to Larry and ducks his head to Peyton.

“See you later?” he asks, and she knows that means _Do you want me to come back?_

“Yeah,” she smiles. “After school?”

He nods and turns, throws another smile over his shoulder then is gone.

“How long has he been back?” Larry asks, once the door has closed.

“Back?”  
“I assume he came in some time this morning?”  
“No,” she says, realising as she says it how she hadn’t even questioned Nathan staying; not that he wanted to stay, and not that she wanted him there.. “He … he stayed all night. That’s the first time he’s left the hospital since he got here.”

“I’m wondering if maybe I got that kid wrong,” her Dad says with a bemused look. “Or, if he’s not beyond redemption, at any rate.”  
“We’re not together anymore, Dad.”  
“So … last time I saw the two of you together, you were _literally_ throwing things at him, heavy things too, but you insisted that you _loved_ him. Now I come home, and it seems he’s been really rather wonderful, and you’re broken up? Despite the fact that, once upon a time in the dim, dark past I _was_ one, I don’t think I’ll ever understand teenagers!”

“Your parents probably said the same thing about you,” she quips.

“Cheeky! So … what’s this break up over?”

“The usual.”  
“What _is_ the usual, Chicken?”

“He cheated,” she sighs.

“And that’s the usual?” Larry asks, eyebrow raised. “So, it’s happened before?”

“Um … sort of?”

“How is it _sort of_ cheating, Peyton. It is, or it isn’t.”

“I guess … usually we have a fight and sort of break up, and he goes and … does stuff. With other girls. Then we …”  
“Make up?”

She shrugs. Trying to explain the dynamic to her father is … it _sucks_. Mind you, the Nathan-Peyton dynamic has sucked lately too, so …

“And he says it wasn’t cheating ‘cos you were broken up?”  
“Words to that effect, I guess.”

“But it hurts anyway,” her Dad says knowingly.

“Or … something to that effect,” she concedes.

“And this time you’ve been broken up for longer?”

“Yeah.”  
“Because?”  
“This time it was _actual_ cheating. We weren’t broken up. And …” she gulps in air. “And he wanted to not be broken up … but maybe there was someone else that I thought might be …”  
“Might be?”  
“Better to me. Better _for_ me.”  
“And?”

“Turns out he’s also into Brooke, and she’s into … yeah. So …”

“You know, honey, you don’t _have_ to be with anyone.”  
“I know, Dad. I don’t have issues with being on my own.”

“You know, I’ve never told you this,” Larry says moving the chair a little closer, and looking distinctly uncomfortable but also resolved, “and I really wish I didn’t have this tale to tell …”

“What?”

“I … a long time ago … when we were still in high school, a little older than you, but still in high school, I treated your Mom badly.”  
“What did you … _you_ cheated on _her_?”

“I did,” he grimaces. “And even though it was so long ago, I’m still very much ashamed of myself for it.”

“Why are you telling me?”

“Because, we got through it. We talked it out and worked it out, and I apologised my sorry _ass_ off, and she forgave me.”  
“Are you trying to tell me it’s okay for Nathan to …?”  
“No! Not at all. I just – I had my Dad for guidance and to teach me how to be a better man and Anna had _her_ Mom to help her work out what was going on and whether it meant the end or not. It’s not so easy for you and for Nathan. I wish the two of you had better … and more _present_ role models so that you had a chance of being able to do the right thing … for yourselves. And maybe that would end up being the right thing for each other.”

Peyton gazes at her father in absolute bewilderment.

“Honey?”  
“Who the hell are you and what have you done with my Nathan Scott-hating father?”


	5. Like the proverbial ton of bricks.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucas, turned to stone for a few seconds, watches Haley’s rigidly angry back as she moves down the corridor, looks at Brooke, then runs to catch up with his best friend. She resists his restraining hand on her arm at first, but eventually turns and stands hands on hips.  
> “Lucas, what happened?” she demands harshly before he can say anything.

When Haley arrives at her locker, she’s puzzled – actually, she’s stunned – to see her best friend with his arm resting on a locker, above Brooke Davis’ head. They’re clearly flirting madly, and all Haley can do is stand there, a few feet away, with her mouth open, and glare at them. It seems to take forever, but eventually Lucas feels her glare and turns his head.

“Hey, Hales,” he says, looking uncomfortable as she looks wide-eyed from him to the captain of the Ravens’ cheerleaders and back.

“Lucas,” she mutters, partly in accusation, partly in confusion, as she opens her locker door and starts arranging her books for the first two periods.

“That is _some_ poncho,” Brooke sniggers. “I didn’t realise those things existed outside museums.”

“Wow,” Haley retorts, arms holding her books against her chest, and casting a scathing look at the brunette, “you really are as bitchy as everyone says.”

“It’s a gift,” Brooke quips with a saccharine sweet smile.

“And as shallow and selfish,” Haley fires back with disdain.

“Haley!” Lucas protests, though he can’t say he wasn’t a little surprised by Brooke’s nasty remark. It’s not like she even knows Haley.

“You know,” Haley continues, seemingly ignoring him, and continuing to speak to Brooke, “maybe I shouldn’t be, given the established shallowness and selfishness, but I am still surprised you’re even here, after last night, I mean.”  
Even though Haley’s looking just at Brooke, Lucas isn’t 100% sure if she’s speaking to him or to the other girl, but either way he’s seriously confused as to how she knows what happened with he and Brooke last night. Confused, and more than a little embarrassed.

“Oh,” Brooke says, waving her immaculately manicured hand dismissively, “don’t worry about P. Sawyer. She’ll get over it.”  
Haley’s jaw drops open in shock and she looks incredulously at Brooke, then at Lucas, then at Brooke again.

Lucas has the oddest feeling that something else is going on here, but he has absolutely no idea what. Brooke seems to however, and she’s not overly concerned. Well, actually, she’s not _at all_ concerned, but …

 _“What!?”_ Haley eventually chokes out, her eyes wide and her tone still aghast. “She’ll _get over it_?”  
“Her little crush on Broody, here,” Brooke says, dismissively again, running her burgundy fingertips up Lucas’ forearm. “She was shocked to see me with him,” Brooke shrugs offhandedly, “but she’ll be fine; she always is after I get the boy. I’ll buy her something pretty and say _sorry I didn’t realise you liked him_ and …”

“Wow,” Haley interrupts in an awed voice, shaking her head. “You really are a _great_ friend, aren’t you?”  
Brooke shrugs again and moves to walk away but Haley stops her.

“Check your phone at all last night, Brooke?” the tutor asks in a biting voice. “While you were with _‘Broody’_ here?”

“Why?” Brooke asks in a bored tone. “You call looking for fashion advice?”

“P. Sawyer – your _so-called_ best friend – is in the hospital,” Haley says coolly, then turns her back and walks away.

Lucas, turned to stone for a few seconds, watches Haley’s rigidly angry back as she moves down the corridor, looks at Brooke, then runs to catch up with his best friend. She resists his restraining hand on her arm at first, but eventually turns and stands hands on hips.

“Lucas, what happened?” she demands harshly before he can say anything.

“Um … Peyton came to my house last night and said … this stuff ... and Brooke was there and … came into my room and …”  
“No,” Haley says, shaking her head firmly. “I mean _at the basketball party_. What _really_ happened?”

“I … we were …”  
“Yeah. Making out like crazy,” she intones, rolling her eyes.  
“I ... put my hand on her heart and told her I wanted more than that, more than just …”  
“Sex?”  
“I really can’t have this conversation with you, Hales,” he pouts, “it’s weird.”  
“For God’s sake, Lucas, _grow up_!” she shouts at him impatiently.

“I told her that I wanted everything with her,” he answers, stunned at her tone.  
“And that’s when she ran off?”

“Yeah.”  
“And yet within days you are okay with having sex with someone else? With Peyton’s best friend? With _Brooke Davis_?”  
“Haley, I …”  
“Lucas! Even though I _really_ can’t stand the girl, if you think it was okay to do that just because Brooke has that reputation, then you are _not_ the guy I thought I knew. And as for Peyton!”  
“What?”  
“You are an _idiot!_ She’d just come out of long term, serious relationship …”  
“Nathan?” he exclaims. “That ass!?”

“You know,” Haley says pensively, “I really think there was more to them than … but _anyway_ … she was being cautious. She was being careful with her heart and you _freaked her out!”_  
“But … I wanted … I want …”

“You couldn’t have just …?”  
“Given her what she wanted?” he scoffs.

“No! But … I dunno … made out and had fun and let her know you’d be um … up for more,” she says with unintended double entendre that makes him cringe, “without freaking her out?”

“I got …” he begins, then halts and sighs, thumps his fist into his book with frustration and regret. “God, I’ve wanted her for _so long …”  
_ “I know! _Years._ But Lucas, how on earth do you expect her to believe you or trust you now? You said all that stuff and then moved on to her best friend within minutes.”

“Minutes?” he asks, a little outraged.  
“Days, then … it’s all the same. She’ll think … Lucas, she’ll think you’re just a … a _player.”_  
“That’s … _that’s_ what she called me as she was leaving my room last night,” he says in a hushed, devastated voice as he realises exactly how it must have looked to Peyton. “I … oh God, I’ve really ...”  
“Screwed it up?” Haley suggests knowingly, and sympathetically.  
“Oh God.”  
“Hope Brooke Davis was worth it, Lucas,” Haley says, patting his arm, “‘cos I have the feeling you’ve sent your dream girl, your _angel_ , right back into the arms of your brother.”

“What? I … really?”  
“Her Dad called Nathan last night while I was tutoring him. Lucas … God, if you’d seen Nathan’s face … he looked _devastated._ He fell to pieces. I drove him straight to the hospital and … well, I think he’s probably been there all night and …”  
“And what, Haley?” the blond says impatiently. “Does one bedside vigil make up for months of treating her like crap?”  
“Of course not. But …”  
“But what?” he bites out. She’s his best friend; isn’t she supposed to be on his side?  
“Well, _you_ kind of just treated her like crap too, Lucas. And, last night, I think … I think the realisation that he might actually lose her for real hit Nathan like the proverbial ton of bricks.”

“I …”  
“A little like what an idiot you’ve been has just hit you like a ton of bricks.”


	6. “Is that what you want?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t need your help, Lucas. And I’d really prefer it if you left before …”  
> “Before Nathan gets here?”  
> “Too late,” says a confident voice at his shoulder. “Cavalry’s here.”

“Nathan!”

His head is still inside the car as he piles books and notes into his backpack and, to be honest, he’s not in that much of a hurry to speak to anyone, so he just keeps loading his bag until he’s done. When he closes the car door and turns, Brooke is waiting. Hands on her hips, impatiently tapping her toe.

“Brooke,” he intones as he swings his bag over his shoulder and presses the lock button on his car keys.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Sorry?”

“You should be!”

“Brooke, what the hell?”

“Why didn’t you call me?”  
He gestures with his hands – _about what?_ – and waits.

“Peyton!” Brooke shrieks. “Why didn’t you call me about Peyton? About her having a car accident last night and being in the hospital?”

“Because she told me not to.”  
“What? Why?”

“I can’t tell you, Brooke.”

“Can’t? Or won’t?”  
“ _Can’t_ actually. I offered to call you. She told me not to. Said it was a long story and we’d talk after the doctor did his thing, but then we didn’t circle back to it before she was out like a light all night.”

“So … that’s good; she slept okay.”  
“Tends to happen when they pump you full of morphine, Brooke.”

“Morphine?”

“She was in a car wreck, Brooke. She’s in pain. Yes, morphine.”

“You stayed there all night?”

“Yeah.”

“How did you …?”  
“Her Dad called me when he got the call.”  
“Why didn’t he call _me_?” Brookes pouts, tone slightly outraged.

“He did,” Nathan says rigidly. “He called you several times. You didn’t pick up.”

“He should’ve kept …”  
“ _You_ should’ve answered! What were you doing, Brooke? Or maybe I should ask _who_ you were doing?”

“I … what did she tell …?”  
“Huh!” Nathan scoffs, realising that something significant’s happened between these two girls he’s known for what feels like his whole life.

“What?”  
“She didn’t tell me anything. I just know you, Brooke Davis. Too busy getting laid to actually be there when your best friend needs you.”

“You’re sounding awfully virtuous for someone who was never exactly Boyfriend of the Year, Nathan.”

“At least I picked up the phone, Brooke. When it mattered, I picked up the damn phone and I was there for her.”

“Nathan …”  
“Not now, Brooke. I have teachers to see.”  
“It’s lunchtime!” Brooke crows as their conversation is pierced by a loud bell.

“And I missed the morning’s classes, so I have teachers to see to get up to speed.”

“Wow. Poncho Girl’s really done a number on …”

“Shut up, Brooke,” he says firmly. “I’m so not in the mood to listen to you sniping about Haley … or Peyton. Or anything.”

“P. Sawyer,” Brooke rasps when she enters the hospital room. “How are you doing?”

“What are you doing here?” Peyton asks bluntly.

“I just heard a couple hours ago. I had a test second period, so I had to … I came as soon as …”  
“And now you can leave,” the blonde cuts in coolly.

“Peyton …”

“I have nothing to say to you, Brooke.”

“What? Just because I didn’t find out until this morning? Peyton, I’m sorry … if your Dad had got hold of …”  
“That has nothing to do with it. And if you think it does, you’re even more … just … go.”

“Peyton …”  
“Did you not hear me last night, Brooke? Or were you maybe hoping I have amnesia or something and forgot what you did? I’m over your constant manipulation and … I want you to leave. Okay?”

“Look, Peyton …”

“No!” Peyton shouts at her, gesturing unthinkingly and wincing as her bad shoulder protests.

“What’s going on here?” a stern voice asks from behind Brooke.

“I was just …” Brooke begins.

“I’m really tired,” Peyton says to the nurse who’s approaching her bed. “Is it … is there any way to stop visitors coming in?”

“Sure,” the woman replies as she blocks Peyton from Brooke’s view, checks the monitor and smooths the bedcovers. “I’ll close the door and pop a Patient Resting No Visitor sign on it. That do the trick for you, honey?”

“Thanks,” Peyton nods. “Can you …?” she begins, then nods discreetly towards Brooke. The nurse winks and spins on her heel, gathers Brooke into her bustling motion and sweeps her out of the room.

“Come along then,” she hustles, “time to go. Miss Sawyer needs rest.”  
“But I …”  
“Nonsense. I’m sure your school lunch hour is over. Off you go, now.”  
“But I …”  
“Miss Sawyer can let you know herself when you’re welcome back. Though from what I just heard, it might be a while.”

“Bitch,” Brooke mumbles under breath.

“Indeed, sweetheart,” the nurse responds. “My excuse is patient welfare. What’s yours?”

Lucas is a great deal humbler when he visits her straight after school. His hair’s messy, his eyes troubled, his demeanour more than a little shamefaced. It doesn’t make her any more receptive than she was with Brooke.

Her Dad left a while ago to get coffee and when the door pushes open, she thinks it’s him returning, so she doesn’t even look up at first. When the door stays open, but nothing further happens, she turns to look.

“Um … hi?” he says quietly.

“Oh God,” she mumbles. “Not you too.”  
“Sorry?”

“What do you want, Lucas?”

“To see if you’re okay?”  
“I’m fine. Guilt assuaged? You can go now.”

“Guilt? I’ve seen the way you drive,” he says in a tone that is supposed to be joking, “you can hardly blame me for your car ...”

“Excuse me?” she questions scathingly. “The accident was _not_ my fault.”

“Says who?”  
“Says the police, actually. The other driver was drunk. They ran a red.”

“Shit. Peyton, I’m …”  
“Sorry? Yeah. So, good. Off you go, then.”

“Seriously?”

“ _Dead_ seriously.”

“Why are you so …?”  
“So what?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Peyton … so _pissed_ at me?”

“Because I don’t need anyone coming in here, making out like they give two hoots, when all they really want is to make themselves feel better!”

“That’s not …”  
“I don’t need Brooke doing it and I don’t need you doing it. So …”  
“This is about Brooke?”

“No, Lucas. This is about you pretending to be one kind of person and turning out to be someone completely the opposite. This is about you being a … a …”  
“Player?”  
“That. And … and holier than thou, and a … hypocrite.”

“A _hypocrite?”_  
“Just … go away, Lucas. I don’t have the energy.”  
“What exactly have I been hypocritical about?”  
“Sitting in judgement on other people’s lives and relationships when you’re nothing but a …”

“Player,” he repeats. “That’s what you think?”

“Yeah, Lucas, that’s what I think.”  
“I’m not a player, Peyton.”

“Player? Ass? Whatever … whatever you are, Lucas, I don’t have the energy for it.”  
“Peyton …”  
“And you know what? Nathan will be here any minute and I really don’t have the energy to break up another testosterone-fuelled game of Scott boy one-upmanship either. So, it would be just dandy if you’d high tail it out of here.”

“I … is that what you want?”  
“Yes, Lucas,” she says impatiently. “That is what I want.”

“Because … you kind of change your mind a bit about what you want.”

“Yeah? That’s a little rich coming from you.”

“I wanted …”  
“Everything?” she inserts smoothly and with a mocking tone. “Forgive me for being a little incredulous or … sceptical about that.”  
“Look, I get that …”  
“Yeah. I wonder if Brooke knows you’re here? No? Thought so. Look, I told her to go. I’m telling you to go. I’m really not interested in hearing platitudes from either of you.”

“I’m sorry if you think this,” he says, gesturing to the room, “is my …”  
“Fault? Responsibility? No. Of course not. It’s dumb bad luck. Nothing more, nothing less. Was I pissed after I saw you and Brooke? Sure. But the kind of pissed that gives you clarity, not the kind of pissed that makes you distracted. I was not driving on auto pilot with my head somewhere else. A drunk hitting me was not my fault and it was not your fault and visiting me here is certainly not your responsibility.”

“Can I at least …?”

“I don’t need your help, Lucas. And I’d really prefer it if you left before …”  
“Before Nathan gets here?”  
“Too late,” says a confident voice at his shoulder. “Cavalry’s here.”

Nathan pushes past and slings his heavy looking backpack into the far corner of the room. He looks from Peyton to Lucas and back.

“Alright, Sawyer?” he asks.

“Lucas was just leaving,” she says blithely.

“Excellent,” Nathan grins. “Thanks for stopping by, Lucas. Nice of you to check in but, as you can see, looks like we’re all under control here.”


	7. “Is there anything I can say now to make it suck less?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So,” he says, gently waving the cup to and fro while he grins, “why are you so pissed at Brooke?”  
> “Seriously?” she protests. “You’re withholding coffee unless I tell you?”  
> “Uh-huh,” he nods proudly. “And Lucas. Why are you so pissed at him? Not that I mind that. That’s kind of awesome. I think you really scared him.”

She sends Nathan down to the hospital café to get her a decent coffee, knowing full well that it won’t be great, but needing a caffeine fix badly. When he returns, and holds the cup tantalisingly out of her reach, she fixes him with her ‘pissed off Peyton’ glare.

“So,” he says, gently waving the cup to and fro while he grins, “why are you so pissed at Brooke?”

“Seriously?” she protests. “You’re withholding coffee unless I tell you?”

“Uh-huh,” he nods proudly. “And Lucas. Why are you so pissed at him? Not that I mind _that_. That’s kind of awesome. I think you really scared him.”

“I … I can’t tell you,” she mutters, looking embarrassed and uncomfortable and he thinks he hasn’t seen her look like that in forever.  
“Can’t or won’t?” he asks, recalling Brooke asked him the exact same thing earlier that day.  
“Won’t. It’s too weird.”

“Pretend I’m your friend,” he shrugs. “Your friend who is withholding coffee until you spill.”

“Aren’t we?” she asks, looking at him pointedly. “Friends? Do I have to _pretend_?”  
“I dunno. Are we?” he asks. “I … not close … not right now.” 

“Could we be?” she asks bluntly.

“I dunno, Peyt. It’s … weird.” Now it’s his turn to look embarrassed and uncomfortable, he knows it and he knows she can see it.

“Why?”

“Because I’m not _friends_ with girls that I want to …”

“What?”

“ _Be_ with,” he admits with a shrug, trying to make it seem like nothing major.

“Oh … still?” she asks, looking a little baffled, but also … maybe … hopefully … a little pleased.

“Fuck yes,” he mutters, then slips back into teasing mode, the easy stand by. “Even in that ever so attractive hospital gown, you’re sexy as hell.”

“Right. So … we can agree on it all being weird, then. Which is why I can’t talk to you about …” 

“Just … pretend. Pretend I’m your friend,” he insists. “You clearly need to talk. And you _seriously_ need the coffee.”

“Why do you want to hear this so much?”

“It’s not that I _want_ to ... I mean, especially if it’s about … _him_ … it’s just … we were together a long time, Peyt. I mean … isn’t a year and a half at high school like being married for fifteen years or something?”

She laughs, then nods in defeat, and reaches for the cup which he hands over, knowing she’s caved and that she won’t back out; she’ll tell him what’s going on.

“I know I fucked it all up,” he continues, “but, I dunno’, maybe I could make up for a just a little bit of that? Maybe I could … help you, or something?”  
“ _Help_ me?” she repeats? Not incredulously, not suggesting he _can’t_ help, just surprised … as in, he – Nathan Scott - _wants_ to help her?  
“I do _know_ you, Sawyer.”  
“I know you do,” she says softly.

“So …?”  
  


And, surprising them both, she tells him everything. How, despite her denials and reticence, he’d maybe been right; that there _had been_ something between her and his brother, though of course he frowns when she uses that word. Not that she did anything she shouldn’t have done while they, she and Nathan, were still together, she is at pains to point out. And that that something had been, apparently, growing, and that at the basketball party there had been …

“That kiss,” he supplies with a wince.

“Yeah,” she sighs, “and …”  
“And?”

“Another one … or … or more …”  
“You _slept_ with him?” he exclaims, looking more outraged then he has any right to.  
“What!? No!”

“Okay,” he says with clear relief. “Then what?”  
“Well,” she admits, screwing up her nose a bit, as if in distaste. “I guess … I was going to. I … we were upstairs and …”  
“And?” he presses looking angrier by the second.

“Nathan. I _said_ I couldn’t tell you this,” she pushes back. “Besides _you_ have no right to get pissed.”

“Maybe not,” he admits with a pout, “doesn’t mean I’m not, though.”

“I … he got all deep and meaningful and I freaked out and …”  
“Freaked out? What did he do to freak you out?” he asks indignantly. “Did he _hurt_ you?”

She can’t say his protectiveness of her isn’t … appealing. Even though it’s weird as hell talking to him about another guy.

“He … I shouldn’t say … but he just got kind of serious and I said it wasn’t supposed to be that, and …”  
She stops. Because Nathan is laughing at her.

Hard.

So hard, and for so long, that he actually has to stand and move to get a tissue from the box on her nightstand to wipe tears off his cheeks.

“What the hell?” she asks in annoyance.

 _“This wasn’t supposed to be that?”_ he repeats back to her.

“Yeah. So?”  
“You said that to me after our first date!” he reminds her, laughing anew.

She opens her mouth to deny it, then stops. Because he’s right.

He’d walked her to her front door and asked if he could take her out again and she’d asked why. He’d chuckled and told her that if a first date went as well as theirs had, that it was kind of normal to have a second one.

_“A date?” she’d asked, genuinely surprised. “This wasn’t supposed to be that.”_

_“What was it supposed to be?” he’d fired back, looking at her as if she was slightly bonkers._

_“I dunno. You … you don’t date.”  
“What?” he’d laughed._

_“You don’t!” she’d protested. “You’re Nathan Scott. You don’t date.”  
“No? What do I do then?”  
“You just … you make out with random girls at parties and have one-night stands and … move on to the next girl when you get bored. Which, I might add, is always before the second night. Though you have been known to circle back for a replay on occasion, at which point it’s rinse and repeat. No second date.”  
“Why’d you agree to this date then?”  
“I didn’t know it was a date.”  
“Right. So, you came out for a one-night stand then?” he’d fired back, resting his hands on her hips and pulling her into him suggestively._

_“No!”  
“You think this wasn’t a date, but you don’t want a one-night stand?” he’d quizzed her, eyebrow flirtatiously raised. “Why’d you go out with me then?”_

_“Maybe to see what all the fuss is about,” she’d flirted back mildly. “You know … see if you live up to the hype.”  
“Trust me, babe,” he’d said in a low voice, “I more than live up to the hype.”  
“Well, I don’t know if I intend to find out,” she’d said coolly, though her eyes had been twinkling and she’d known it._

_“I’ll tell you what you don’t know,” he’d said, with his thumbs resting on her hip bones, “you don’t know everything there is to know about Nathan Scott.”_

_“No?” she’d challenged._

_“Nope.”  
“Tell me something I don’t know about Nathan Scott, then, Hotshot.”_

_And oh, hadn’t it been blindingly obvious that he loved that nickname. He’s practically preened, and he’d leant in close and spoke softly near her ear._

_“Nathan Scott hasn’t dated because there wasn’t anyone worth dating.”  
“Oh, really?”_

_“Really.”  
“Wasn’t or isn’t?”  
“Wasn’t.”  
“What changed?”  
“You came from summer break all … like this,” he’d said, leaning back and sweeping his eyes over her._

_“Like what?” she’d snorted._

_“Gorgeous. Sexy. Hot as hell.”  
“Right,” she’d said with an eye roll. “’Cos that’s what it’s all about.”  
“Partly,” he’d agreed mildly, unashamedly._

_“And partly what else then?”  
“You’re smart and funny and feisty and you made me work like hell for one lousy date. How many times did you shoot me down?”_

_“Lousy?” she teases, ignoring the other question, though she knew the answer. Six. Six times she’d shot him down before she’d said yes. “Thought you said it went well? Thought you said it went so well, in fact, that you want another one?”_

_“I’m gonna have to watch what I say to you, aren’t I?”_

_“Damn right, you are,” she’d nodded._

_“And I’ll do that,” he’d said, stepping back, the warmth of his hands being removed and leaving her with an odd sensation of loss. “On our second date.”_   
  
  


“Okay, fine,” she concedes as he sits back in the chair next to her bed, “you’re right. I did say that after our first date. But … that was different.”

“Well, yeah,” he teases, “ _I_ played my cards right and got a second date. And a third and a …”  
“Shut up,” she mutters.

“So, then what?” he asks her. “Lucas got all serious, you got all _it’s not supposed to be that_ , then what?”  
“Um, I took off.”

“Why?”

“I was … I dunno,” she shrugs.

“You do so know! Why?”

“I was … scared, I guess,” she admits quietly.

“Scared? Of what?” he asks, genuinely baffled.

“Of …”

And, all of a sudden, she’s not so sure _what_ she was afraid of that night.

She’d thought, in the moment, in that bedroom, that she was afraid of what she felt for Lucas. Then, in the aftermath of the disaster of walking in on him and Brooke, and really not feeling all that bothered by it other than feeling like she’d been made a bit of a fool of, been _played_ , she’d figured it was more that she’d been scared what she _thought_ she felt for Lucas.

Now? Now, she’s sitting here, well, _lying_ here, and Nathan is being … kind of amazing. And they’ve just been laughing about their first date, and how they started. And now she’s kind of remembering how completely and utterly _great_ the first year of being with him was. And how completely and utterly _awful_ the last few months were with him. And they were hard because of how much it _hurt_ her when he kept screwing around on her and … maybe … _maybe_ ... it wasn’t so much that she was afraid of feeling something for _Lucas_. Maybe it was that she was afraid of feeling something for _anyone_.

Because damn, it _hurt_ ; it hurt to feel things for someone. To feel things for … a Scott boy.

“Peyt?” the raven-haired Scott boy prompts.

“I don’t really know,” she replies with a bewildered look at him.

“Okay,” he drawls. “So … I’m still not sure why you’re all pissed at him. And Brooke.”

“Because … because … can I ask you something?”  
“Sure.”  
“Did Brooke tell you that I wanted for us, you and me, I mean, to get back together? Before the basketball party?”  
“Um … yeah,” he says looking a little coy, running his hand back over his hair. “Why?”

“She was pushing me back to you, ‘cos she wanted Lucas herself,” she tells him quietly, and it’s clear to him that she’s just having this realisation now.

“What? Brooke actually has the hots for that loser, too? I thought she was just … doing her thing.”  
“Her _thing_?”  
“You know, the Brooke Davis ‘welcome to the team’ thing.”

“Nathan!” she squawks in shock.  
“What? Well ... she does.”  
“Clearly this was more than that,” she grumbles.  
“Clearly?”

“I … last night?” Geeze, she thinks was it just last night? “Last night, I … um … I went to Lucas’ house.”  
“How come?”

“I … I was … um … to tell him I …”  
“Had the hots for him?” he teases.

“Well, it was … I thought it was different. I thought I wanted ...”  
“Deep and meaningful?”

“Um, yeah … I guess?”  
“And?”  
“Brooke was there … um …”  
“Naked?” he smirks.  
“No! Well … not yet … but definitely with that intent. Oh,” she adds as a thought occurs to her, “maybe it was actually _after_ …”

“Wow. So … showdown at the OK corral?”  
“Um … _so much for hoes over bros, Brooke_ and _you’re nothing but a player, Scott_?” she recites her own words, using exactly the same cold, dismissive tone she’d used last night when she said those things for the first time.

“Awesome!” Nathan chuckles.

“Not really,” she sighs.

“Maybe it would have been simpler if you’d just gone along with Brooke’s plan,” he says as neutrally as he can make himself.

“What?”

“The pushing you back to me plan.”

“Really?” she scoffs, but lightly, with humour.

“Yeah, I thought she was legit on my side,” he says with a regretful tone. “So, you really think she just wanted him herself, huh?”

“Yeah, I kind of figured that out the second I saw her bouncing into his bedroom all … anyway, I just didn’t realise she’d tried to do a number on you, too. And, I obviously didn’t realise your broth … that Lucas is such a freaking _player_.”

“Actually, I don’t he is,” Nathan says, surprising himself with both the insight and the almost defence of Lucas. “I think he just doesn’t know what’s up. I almost, kind of, feel for him on that.”

“What? Why?”

“I know what it feels like to be turned down by Peyton Sawyer the first time you screw up all your courage and ....”

“You didn’t jump into bed with my best friend within a few days though,” she laughs. She loves it when he’s self-deprecating like that. It doesn’t happen often, even less that it used to, and it somehow makes him seem … warmer, more … more like _her_ Nathan.

“Yeah, but that’s because I only wanted you.”

She can’t help it. She scoffs. And he looks terribly wounded for a moment before he covers it up and turns it into self-defence.

“What?” he asks a little belligerently.

“If you’d wanted just _me_ , we might not even be in this position,” she says drily.

“That’s not …” he begins strongly, before he stops. Because what can he say? She’s right – sort of. And she’s right to call him out on it - definitely. “Okay,” he concedes. “I get it. I get what it seems like. But I really did only want you.”

“Nathan, how can you say that?” she entreats. “If you only wanted me, then … why’d you do it? Why’d you cheat?”

“I … I don’t know if I can explain,” he admits.

“’Cos you don’t know? ‘Cos there is _no_ reason?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head with certainty. “I know. I just don’t think I can explain it right.”

“Try.”

“Partly pressure … just ... if I say how much I like sex, you won’t hit me right?”

“Um. No. And it’s not like I didn’t know _that_.”

“I just … basketball’s how I work out all that … stuff,” he explains, looking a little vulnerable. “It’s a … a pressure valve, a release. But if basketball gets shitty, like if I have a crap run, or Dad’s on my case and destroying it for me … then … the release becomes …”

“Sex.”

“Yeah. And most of the time that wasn’t a problem,” he continues. “because … well, I had this seriously hot girlfriend, who happened to like sex, too.”

“Yeah?” she says in that quirky light tone she gets when she teases. “Who?”

“Funny,” he says with an eye roll. “And _by the way_ , she was freaking awesome at it, too.”

“This doesn’t explain the cheating,” she reminds him. “What was it? If I didn’t feel like it, it was okay in your head to go elsewhere?”

“No. This is the bit that’s hard to explain. I … when you were pushing me away, or not _here,_ like … here but off in your head ... or pissed at me ‘cos I did something that I didn’t realise was an issue … if that coincided with a basketball issue then that sort of became double pressure and … if some other girl came onto me, when you’d just told me we were done or told me to fuck off, then it … it felt good, for a while anyway, to have … I dunno’ … an outlet. Some fun. A pressure release. Then it felt like crap when you found out.”

“Because I got even more pissed at you and dumped your ass again?”

“No. Well, yeah. But mainly because, contrary to popular belief, I didn’t _like_ hurting you. That ... sucked.”

“It sucked more to be on the receiving end of it, Nathan,” she says quietly. “And if you felt like crap afterwards, why’d you keep doing it?”

“We all know I’m a slow learner.”

“Me too; I’m the sucker that kept taking you back and giving you the chance to kick me again.”

“You know … you know there was only one actual cheating thing, right?” he asks, looking her straight in the eye. “The last …”  
“The last one. Yeah. I mean … that’s what I thought.”  
“The others …”  
“We were ‘broken up.’”

“I … I know it still …”  
“It sucked,” she says firmly, finishing the statement for him. “Even if we were ‘broken up’ it totally sucked.”

He sighs and spreads his hands out on the side of the bed and looks at them, then lifts his head and looks her right in the eye.

“Is there anything I can say now to make it suck less?” he asks, entirely genuinely, entirely without ulterior motive or ego and entirely surprising the hell out of her.

“I ... I don’t know,” she says, blinking rapidly as he continues to search her green eyes with his blue, as he reaches his large hand and squeezes her knee a little through the blankets.

“I really wish there was,” he says as he drops his gaze.


	8. “You’ve got, I think, a small window here.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Why are you …? You hate me.”  
> “Nathan,” Larry sighs, “I don’t hate you. I never did. You used to be a decent kid; you know? But I do hate the way you’ve treated my daughter the last few months. I’m a Dad and I hate seeing my little girl in pain. Don’t do stupid shit to make her feel pain, be the guy you’ve been the last couple of days, and I won’t have any problems with you at all.”

When Larry arrives – late afternoon – he sends Nathan home, telling him to go get his catchup schoolwork started, to get some rest, thanks him for getting schoolwork for Peyton to do.

Nathan’s halfway down the hallway when Larry’s hand falls on his shoulder. He’s half expecting a lecture, despite the fact that Peyton’s Dad’s been pretty decent to him over the last day or two.

“Mr Sawyer?”  
“Larry.”  
“I … okay? Larry … I …”

“I should also have thanked you for everything else you’ve done over the last couple of days, before I got here, and after.”  
“I … um … you already did that,” Nathan responds, his entire stance and body language screaming awkward.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean … it’s not like I’d ever not have helped. I couldn’t just … leave her here alone.”

“Really?” Larry asks, eyeballing the younger man fiercely.

“Really,” Nathan confirms, somewhat uncomfortably. Maybe that lecture’s about to happen after all.

“Nathan, you’ve got, I think, a small window here.”

“I … a window? For what?”

“To get her back.”

“To get her back?” he repeats, stunned.

“You _do_ want her back, don’t you, kid?”  
“Why are you …? You hate me.”

“Nathan,” Larry sighs, “I don’t hate you. I never did. You used to be a decent kid; you know? But I _do_ hate the way you’ve treated my daughter the last few months. I’m a Dad and I hate seeing my little girl in pain. Don’t do stupid shit to make her feel pain, be the guy you’ve been the last couple of days, and I won’t have any problems with you at all.”

“I … um …”  
“Look, I get that this is probably highly uncomfortable for you, and I’m not asking you to confirm or deny, okay? Not to me. All I’m saying is, if you want her back, I think you’ve got a small window, a _very_ small window. And … if you manage to get through that window, I won’t get in your way, as long as I see more of what I’ve seen from you here in this hospital? Alright?”  
“I … yeah,” Nathan says, still in shock, then he shakes his head as it really dawns on him how significant the last couple of minutes has been. He stands straighter; taller. “Yes. Alright. Thank you.”

He turns back to look down the hallway as he’s waiting for the elevator and Larry Sawyer is still standing there, hands on hips, head tilted, looking pensive. Nathan lifts his hand in a silent goodbye, and Larry tips his hand at his forehead, a salute of sorts, before he turns and goes back to Peyton’s room.

The elevator doors open, Nathan steps in, they close, and he breathes in deeply. _What the actual hell?_

He takes a detour on the way home. He isn’t really aware of having made the decision to do it; he just finds himself at the yard where he knows Peyton’s car will be. She’s okay, her recovery won’t take that long but he’s still painfully aware that it could have been very different. Somehow, he needs to see, for himself (not that he knows anything about cars or the physics of how crashes work), how close a call it was.

So … he knew the damage was to the passenger side, thank God. Peyton told him that much. But even so, seeing it brings it home. He understands now how her shoulder got banged up and her wrist broken; the force of the impact into the passenger door must have been massive because it’s really folded in. She’d have been thrown sideways like a … he doesn’t know what, but he can virtually see it; her shoulder thumping into the top of the door, her hand flying out through the window(she probably had the window down), then her wrist smacking into the steering wheel as her body cannoned back the other way.

The Comet’s an old car; built solid. He knows from experience that the doors weigh a ton. It took him ages to adjust to that when she first started driving it; he repeatedly didn’t push it hard enough, accustomed to the lighter doors of more modern cars, and she’d laugh like a drain every time he messed it up and had to close the door a second time, calling him a wuss with no muscle.

The door’s a mess, and most of the panel ahead of it. The other guy must’ve been driving a freaking Hummer, Nathan thinks.

A solid middle-aged man appears from inside, wiping his dusty hands on a cloth, and approaches Nathan.

“It’s a classic,” he says, assuming Nathan is ‘shopping’, “gorgeous car, and worth the work to fix her up again, but I don’t know yet if the owners will be selling or repairing.”  
“They’ll repair it,” Nathan says, absently as he runs his hand along the door, the hair on his arm standing on end as, just within his own head, he hears an echo of a sickening metal crunch.

“You know that for sure?”

“Yeah,” Nathan replies with a small smile. “The owner? She’s a classic too.”

“And lucky,” the guy adds.

“Lucky?” Nathan spits out, aghast, recalling the _to the point_ recounting of facts the police officer had provided while Peyton was still out for the count. “She was in a car accident. A fucking idiot driving drunk cannoned through a red and ...” 

“Yeah, buddy, and if she’d been hit on the driver’s side with that force, even in a solid old beauty like this, she’d have been a goner.”

“Don’t ...” he feels nausea rising, just as he did a couple of days ago, and bites it back down. “Don’t say that.”

“Right, sorry,” the guy shrugs. “Your girl, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Close call then.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Nathan replies.

“Well, sometimes these things have a silver lining,” the guy says, crouching and down and running his own hand along the crumpled black metal. Nathan frowns: it’s almost like watching someone run their hand over _her._

“How can you …?” he spits out.

“Hey,” the guy says, in a placating tone. “Did you know before?”

“Know what?”

“How strongly you feel,” he says casually, making Nathan frown, but then the guy stands and steps around Nathan and extends a hand to a new arrival. “Hey. Good to see you, man.”

Nathan frowns even more when he tracks the guy’s movements and sees that the new arrival he’s greeting is Keith Scott.

“Hey Matt. How’s things?”

“Yeah, good. What can I do for ya, Keith?”

“Nathan?”

Keith stops and yeah, it’s clear that he’s surprised to see his nephew there.

“Keith,” Nathan mumbles a little, feeling awkward and maybe even a little embarrassed. “Um ... what are you doing here?”  
“Larry Sawyer asked me to take a look,” Keith says, stepping passed Nathan and crouching, raising his hand to run his palm over that same spot where Nathan had run his and the guy, Matt, had too.

“I … you know her Dad? Peyton’s Dad?” Nathan asks.

“Not terribly well,” Keith says, casting a glance back over his shoulder to look at Nathan. _Shit. the kid got tall;_ he thinks. “But he said he wouldn’t trust anyone else to do the work. I knew Anna better. Still not well, but more than Larry …”

It’s awkward, still, but Keith just takes his time, keeps casting his hand over the two damaged panels, pulls a small flashlight out of his pocket and shines it into the gaping hole between them, scrambles onto his back and scoots underneath and shoves at a few things that Nathan has no idea about.

“How are you doing?” Keith asks as he emerges from under the car, sits, dusts his hands off on his jeans.

“Ok, I guess,” Nathan shrugs. This is weird; this feels really weird.

“And how’s Peyton?” Keith continues, squinting a bit against the late afternoon sun.

“Yeah, she’ll be okay.”

“And you? Will you be okay?”

“I ... I just said I’m okay,” he replies, a bit aggressively. “I wasn’t in the car.”

Nathan’s sure that Keith must know that. If he’d been in the car, he’d have been on the passenger side (she hardly ever let him drive her precious baby), and he’d have been … fuck.

“No,” Keith says in a tone that indicates yes, he did know his nephew wasn’t in the vehicle. “But you look ... shaken up. And, it’s not so long since your own … incident.”

“You don’t know me,” Nathan says, a little belligerently.

“No. I don’t. But you can change that any time you want to,” Keith says, clambering to his feet. “You know that, right?”

“I ... have to go.”

Peyton sends her Dad home after a couple of hours; he looks exhausted and, while he protests at first, she soon convinces him she needs him to go home so that he can come back tomorrow and bring back a bunch of things for her if she’s going to be here for another day or two; more toiletries, her sketch book, her good pencils, the book she’s halfway through, her iPod.

And she’s fine for a while, then somehow, everything from the last couple of days (couple of weeks, maybe) catches up with her and she feels not just alone, but truly lonely, and a little afraid, and _very_ confused. About Brooke, about Lucas and, maybe most of all, about Nathan.

She doesn’t think she’s audibly crying, but a nurse – one she hasn’t seen before, presumably a night shift nurse - comes in a little later, smooths the covers, takes her hand.

“Pain getting a little rough, honey?” she asks kindly, noting the tear tracks on her patient’s cheeks.

“Oh, no. It’s fine.”

“You know, we’re here to help,” she laughs lightly. “It’s kind of in the job description.”

Maybe it’s the laugh, but Peyton bristles and turns a little frosty.

“I’m fine.”

“You know, I’m a bureau nurse…”  
“What does that mean?”  
“Means lots of things, but best of all for you, it means I’m here just for a few nights to cover some vacation time and tonight’s the last one. You’ll never see me again.”

“Really?”  
“Really.”  
Peyton looks at her with interest but remains stubbornly quiet.

“So, if it’s not pains in your body, I’m guessing it’s pain in your heart?”

“Maybe?” Peyton admits in a whisper.  
“A boy?”

“Maybe.”  
“A girl?” the nurse asks, eyebrow raised and a smile twitching at the side of her mouth.  
“Um … try … two boys and a girl?”  
“Wow, high school is way more complicated these days.”  
“Tell me about it.”

“Or _you_ could tell _me_? Consider it ... educating the older generation?”

“Educating?”  
“Ah, who am I kidding, I was never much of a student; how about the Cliff Notes’ version?”

Peyton grins and launches into a biting, sarcastic summary of the last few weeks.

“You asked for it, sister,” she says drily. “Okay, so Boy 1. Boyfriend since the end of Freshman year. Long time, really. For high school. Great, until he wasn’t. It’s been … on and off for a while. He … used to love me. Lately? Seems to love it more when we break up so he can get on with screwing around with other girls. So … we’re broken up. Properly this time. Boy 2. Sort of his brother. No,” she says when the nurse opens her mouth. “Don’t ask. Trust me. Way too much drama. So … Boy 2 is sort of Boy 1’s brother. We were ... maybe starting something then he … proclaims undying love or _something.”_

“For you? Or for his kind of brother?” the nurse quips.

“Hah! Funny. Yeah … for me. And I ... ran way scared. Then I realised I’d made a mistake. Or I thought I had. So, I went to … and anyway, he’s jumping into bed or jumped into bed or whatever, with my best friend, who’d been doing her Machiavellian thing behind the scenes trying to get me to go back to Boy 1 anyway.”

“Right … so ... let me take a stab at this. You’re pissed at Best Friend, and hurt by Best Friend, for betraying you. My guess is I could probably add ‘again’ to that sentence.”

“I thought you said you weren’t much of a student.”

“And … Boy 2. More pissed _at_ him? Or more pissed that you feel like you got him so wrong? Pissed that there isn’t that perfect ‘other half of your soul’ fit after all?”

“I don’t like you,” Peyton says with a wry smile.

“Honey, you don’t have to like me, you just have to take your medicine,” the nurse shoots back with an almost identical, equally wry smile.

“Nice comeback!”

“So?”

“You know? I don’t think I got him wrong, exactly,” Peyton says thoughtfully. “I think maybe he’s just a bit naïve. Maybe he is sweet and genuine and all of that. But I think someone like me ...”  
“Someone like you?”  
“Peyton Elizabeth Sawyer; emotional cripple.”

The nurse frowns at her, arms akimbo, but Peyton rushes on.

“Someone like me just ... can’t deal with someone that _indecisive_ and someone that can just … _flip_ like that. I mean … he’s either a flaky flip flopper or hiding his heart. Either way … not something I can deal with.”  
The nurse nods. “And?”  
“And what?”

“Speaking of hiding your heart …”  
“What?”  
“Boy 1?”

“I … you know, I _really_ don’t like you.”

“Like I said, sweetheart,” the nurse says briskly, smoothing the covers again, then stepping back. “It really doesn’t matter what you think of me, but you might want to figure out what you truly think of your boy.”

She sleeps incredibly deeply after that, waking, feeling refreshed and bright, only when she hears someone come into the room. It’s a nurse. A different one.

“Morning,” she says cheerily, “my goodness, you’ve slept well. That’s wonderful.”

“Yeah,” Peyton murmurs, sitting up a little, “I feel … really good.”

“Wonderful,” the nurse repeats. “Breakfast will be in shortly. Think your appetite might be back?”  
“Um … actually, yeah. I could eat a horse.”  
“Well,” the nurse chuckles, “I know hospital food’s not brilliant, but we’re not quite at the making you eat horsemeat stage.”

Peyton laughs and, as the nurse is about to leave the room, speaks up.

“I … could you …?”  
“What do you need?”

“Could you maybe ask the other nurse to pop in?” Peyton asks a little shyly, “I wanted thank her.”  
“What other nurse, honey?”  
“The one that was on last night?”  
“I was on last night; I’m just about to finish.”

“I … I didn’t see you …”  
“You slept all night; I was in and out checking on you.”

“And ... there’s …?”

“Nope, no one else has been in here. The nurse’s station’s just across the way, I’d have seen anyone that came in.”

“Oh … okay … wow.”  
“You okay?”  
“Thanks. Yeah, I … weird dream, I guess. I’m … I’m great.”

“Alright then, get yourself semi upright and get ready to tuck away that breakfast.”


	9. “I swear I’m getting you back."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peyton honestly doesn’t know if Nathan will swing by after school. She knows he’ll have practice, and Coach Durham will only let him away with missing so many. Fair enough. He doesn’t show by 4pm, so she knows he’s going to practice, which is good. Really good. Except why does it feel a little … not so good?

Peyton honestly doesn’t know if Nathan will swing by after school. She knows he’ll have practice, and Coach Durham will only let him away with missing so many. Fair enough. He doesn’t show by 4pm, so she knows he’s going to practice, which is good. Really good. Except why does it feel a little … not so good?

It _has_ been nice spending almost the whole day with her Dad; the unexpected silver lining to the _getting in a car wreck_ cloud, she supposes. But shortly before 3pm her Dad had said he has an appointment at the wrecker’s yard to get to and that had made her feel _awful._ She hadn’t even thought about the Comet, her _Mom’s_ car, and what sort or state it might be in.

She’d looked at Larry, eyes wide and alarmed, but he’d merely patted her shoulder reassuringly.

“Don’t get yourself all het up, Chicken. I’m talking to Keith, and …”  
“Keith?”

“Keith Scott.”  
“Well, that’s not awkward at all,” she’d grimaced, thinking of Keith’s nephew; not the brunette one.

“Well, he may be Nathan’s uncle but he’s damned good at what he does, and I wouldn’t trust anyone else with the Comet.”  
“I didn’t mean,” she’d begun before thinking better of saying she hadn’t been referring to Nathan. She had no intention of telling her Dad about the disaster that was her and Lucas, that became Lucas and Brooke, another disaster in the making in her view. “Never mind. Of course, if he’s the best …”

“He is,” Her Dad had said with total conviction. “I’m going to look at the car then go talk to him. He says it looks bad at first, but it’s on only two panels and he thinks we can bring her back good as new.”  
“But … Dad ...” she’d sighed. “It’ll be …”

“Don’t even think about talking about money,” he’d warned, raising a hand to emphasis his words.

“But …”  
“It’s fine,” he’d insisted. “We might not be rolling in it, sweetie, but there is money put by for things like this.”  
“I … really?”

“Well, not car wrecks _specifically_ ,” he’d said wryly, “but yeah. Important things that crop up.”  
“You sure?”

“You think I could live with myself if this town never got to see Peyton Sawyer driving Anna Sawyer’s car around anymore?” he’d teased. “And, while we’re on financial matters, there’s a not huge, but not too tiny either, college fund.”  
“I … _really?”_

“Oh, Dad,” she’d said, eyes welling up.

“Just leave it with me. I’ll see you again tomorrow. With Comet news.”

So … it’s well after pm5, actually nearly 6pm, and she’s playing with her schoolwork really, not paying enough attention to it, staring down the barrel of a long, boring evening.

When it’s nearly 6.30pm, and she’s given up the last vestiges of hope, the door opens and Nathan walks in, freshly showered, grinning widely, carrying a coffee from a real café, and he even kisses her temple when he hands it to her.

She thanks him, with a wide, warm, genuine smile and they talk.

And talk.

Well, _he_ talks really; it’s not like her day has been exciting. He tells her about school, practice, his latest marks, which are impressive. Even more impressive, he seems quietly proud of them. She tilts her head when he’s talking about his tutoring sessions, watching him with a curious expression, and, when he notices how intently she’s looking at him, he stops and asks her what she’s looking at.

She can’t help herself; she asks him if he’s into Haley.

He pauses, and she can see him thinking about it - actually, _seriously_ thinking about it – not just preparing to say, as a kneejerk reaction; _Hell yes, she’s hot_ or _What? A tutor girl? Seriously?_ He’s really thinking about how he feels, what he thinks.

Eventually, he says, rather quietly, that he can see a world where he _could_ be into Haley, but it’s not something he wants to explore ‘cos while he knows he needs to be a better guy, and he thinks he is _becoming_ a better guy, he really doesn’t think he could ever be saintly enough to be with Haley James, and maybe he wouldn’t even want to be _that_ good. Then he shrugs and asks her if that makes any sense at all. And she merely smiles and nods and says a quiet and knowing _Yeah._

He asks her what she’s thinking about Lucas, _having had a day or two to think about her idiocy._

She laughs and is about to answer him when a nurse comes in with her pain killers, takes her blood pressure while Peyton swallows the bitter tasting tablets, gently warns Nathan he’ll have to leave in a half hour, max, then leaves them to it.

“So?” Nathan says, wiggling his eyebrows a little. “You? Idiocy? Luc-ass?”

She rolls her eyes and thinks for a moment then says, with a clear nod to his own words, that she can see a world where she _could_ get into him, but it already seems too full of drama and angst and bad timing and she’s not all that keen on people who give up on her after one little hiccup. He laughs, and says wryly that most people see _her_ as the one who’s full of drama and angst.

“Do _you_?” she asks, frowning.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“’Cos I’m one of the few lucky ones that got to see the other stuff,” he shrugs.

“Like what?” she asks, leaning forward, genuinely interested in his response.

“How kind you are. How patient you can be,” he begins before smiling fondly and going on. “That your humour isn’t always sarcastic and black; sometimes it’s wacky and slapstick. That sometimes you change out the ‘loser rock’ for cruisy reggae or old school soul, and get all mellow and laid back and dreamy, kind of like you are right now, actually. Those happy pills are good, huh?”

She nods and gestures for him to keep talking and he smiles and rolls his eyes when she tells him to keep saying nice things about her.

“Um … right … and that your occasional cleaning frenzies are hilarious to watch. That sometimes you talk in your sleep and it’s really cute. That about fifteen minutes before you wake up and open your eyes you look _incredibly_ sexy. I ... well, I mean, you _always_ look incredibly sexy, but right then … that’s just …”

He stops, shaking his head as if to rid himself of an image.

“That’s what?”

“Like … soooo hard not to just kiss you awake and keep kissing you until you can’t do anything except give in to my wicked ways ...” 

“Um,” she blushes. “You did that, I seem to recall. On more than one occasion.”

“Yeah,” he grins. “I’m talking about all the _other times_ when I didn’t though.”

“I’ve told you, Nate; watching me sleep is creepy.”

“No, it’s not. Not for me, anyway.”

“What is it for you then?” she asks, blinking at him slowly. And he thinks the pain killers are maybe making her a bit sleepy.

“Like … _my_ pain relief. Or something. And … I think you mean what _was_ it for me, not what _is_ it for me.”

She bites her lip, looks at him from under her eyelashes, clearly pondering whether or not to say something. And he finds his heart, maybe, speeding up just a little.

“Peyt?”

“What … what if I didn’t?” she almost whispers.

“What if you didn’t what?”

Yeah, his heart is definitely speeding up now.

“What if I didn’t mean _was_?” she asks, looking a little nervous.

He frowns.

“Forget it,” she brushes it off, backing off in something between embarrassment and fear.

“No,” he says softly, leaning forward to rest his fingertips on her wrist. “It’s just … you’re in _hospital._ You’ve been in a car accident. This isn’t the sort of time you make a big call like that.”

“Or maybe it’s exactly the time you make a big call like that,” she retorts instantly.

He’s quiet.

“I … I’ve made this awkward. Sorry,” she eventually whispers.

“Don’t be sorry,” he says, taking her hand and entwining their fingers. “I’m just kind of surprised. And … are you sure this isn’t just a reaction to the Lucas and Brooke thing?”

“Yeah,” she says, quietly but with no wavering. “I’m sure.”

“Can we have this conversation when you’re out of hospital and back on your feet?”

“Nathan don’t baby me,” she says fiercely. “Just say you don’t want to. It’s …”

“Don’t put words in my mouth, okay!” he retorts, just as strongly, before retreating a bit and trying again, still emphatically but with the volume wound down. Somehow the quiet words seem even more intense as he says them. To her ears and to his.

“How many times in the last couple days have I told you you’re sexy as hell?” he points out. “Trust me; it’s not that I don’t want to. I … _fuck, Peyton!_ ” he says in a plaintive whisper. “I meant it a few weeks back when I told you I missed you, okay? And I’ve kept missing you ever since. But I really want to do the right thing here. That, and … I seriously don’t think I can handle it if you turn around in a few days or weeks and tell me you were just, I dunno, crazy from your bump on the head or something, and you don’t want me after all.”

He knows he’s blurted out that whole intense, soppy rant without even looking at her, but he just can’t. He doesn’t do vulnerable. He doesn’t do uncertain. He didn’t think he even did good guy, let alone _sensitive guy_ , but … maybe things have changed. Maybe he’s had a wakeup call. Maybe he does do vulnerable (like puking his guts up when he heard she’d been hurt and didn’t know how badly); maybe he does do uncertain (like really wanting to tell Haley that yes, he would like her to come into the hospital with him but knowing in his bones that he needed to man up and do it alone); maybe he does to good guy (being here with her, as much as he can be, and not just leaping in and saying, hell yes, we’re back on.)

He looks up and wouldn’t you know it; she’s asleep. And he has absolutely no idea when she slipped away.

He gathers up his bag, and returns the chair to the corner, then moves to smooth her hair back from her face and kiss her at the temple. She doesn’t blink, or move at all, which makes him think she might have fallen off to sleep before he got too incriminatingly far into his rant.

He straightens up the sheets, moving a little closer as he does, and his toe nudges something under the bed. It’s her satchel. He grabs the strap to pull it out, with the intention of placing it on the chair he just relocated, but the flap opens and papers slide out so he crouches and starts to straighten then up to slip them back into the bag.

He spots a couple of boldly circled grades on the corners - an 87% and a 92%; both in classes he doesn’t take. One of the teacher comments mentions _insight beyond your years, Ms Sawyer._ He smiles; well, he could’ve told them that. She’s always has an amazing take on what’s going on with him and helpful advice and brilliant suggestions for how to handle his Dad. He supposes it was losing her Mom so early, having to grow up fast when _her_ Dad started taking extended trips away, being alone so much, having so much time to think.

The last few sheets appear to have been tucked inside a clear folder and he can’t resist thumbing through them, though he takes a cautious look at the patient in the bed first. He knows from experience that she feels strongly about people looking at her art without invitation; she’s never once told him he _can’t_ see her work, if he’s asked, but he realises, as each new sketch is revealed to his gaze, that he really hasn’t asked often enough, shown an interest often enough.

Her comic strip style artwork is observant and bitingly witty, punchy and sometimes even painful. The sketches are nothing like that. They’re beautifully rendered, with an almost photographic level of detail, and yet they seem somehow gentle and … nostalgic. To his admittedly untrained eye, it’s almost like the old sepia photos his grandparents have of _their_ grandparents, and yet with a modern feel. There’s the basketball court by the river, a couple of the beach, including _their_ spot. There’s one of a clearing in the woods; he loves that one right away, can almost feel the breeze in the trees and the sunlight dappling through. The last is of a playground, busy with toddlers and elementary aged kids, the swings and teeter-totters in action, a game of tag around a whirligig. It’s so good he can _hear_ it.

He stands for a moment, looking from the drawings to her and back, before he returns them to the folder and slides the folder into her bag, and places the bag onto the chair. He returns to the bed, smooths the sheets again, leans in and presses his lips to hers just a little.

“I swear,” he says to himself, “I’m getting you back and I’m never letting you go again.”


	10. “What is this?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He dwells on it as he’s driving; he knows he’s doing it, pausing expectantly after almost every verbal exchange. He just … can’t bring himself to raise the issue, the conversation in the hospital. The ‘what if I wasn’t’. He doesn’t know how much of his admission she’d heard. Maybe he should just ask her, about that, and about trying again, about being together again. But … the thing is, he honestly thinks it’ll destroy him if she says that’s not what she meant, or she did mean it in the moment, but that she wasn’t thinking straight, or that she’s changed her mind. It’s not like she hasn’t been doing a bit of that lately; changing her mind. And God, the thought of it; the thought of her being with … Lucas? It makes him feel physically ill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long chapter. With some racy stuff so be warned.

She’s discharged ( _finally_ in her mind, though it’s really not that long that she has been enduring what feels like _incarceration_ in the hospital) late in the morning the next day. Larry waits with her for the paperwork, listens carefully to the instructions from the nurse, even makes a few notes, then drives her home, settling her into – thank goodness - her own room, with her full art kit and her record collection and her books.

He hovers a bit and she laughingly tells him not be an old woman, that it was bad enough that he drove home like an old man, to which he replies he _feels_ like an old man, and she needn’t remind him, thank you very much. She looks concerned, apologises for worrying him, which makes him tell her off a little. He reminds her she’s his family, almost all he’s got left, and while he never wants to get another phone call like the one he got from the hospital, he’s fully aware that while _he_ thinks she’s magical, she doesn’t actually have the powers to stop other people making bad errors of judgement. None of this was her fault, he tells her. Again.

She huffs a little at that, recognising how true it is; the part that she does not have the power to stop other people doing stupid things; Nathan, though he’s pulling his head out of his ass lately, Brooke, Lucas. It’s perhaps the last little nudge she needed to fully accept that yes, she’d been confused, but she really thought she hadn’t acted anywhere near as rashly, as … _stupidly_ as Brooke and Lucas have. Anyway, her distraction with Lucas, her … _detour_ … is in the past now.

She comes out of her head to find Larry watching her, obviously waiting for her to reply to a question she hadn’t even heard.

“Sorry?”

“Good news or bad news?” he repeats.

“Um … good, I guess?”

“The Comet can be fixed up.”

“I … really?” she gasps, a flood of relief surging through her, eyes welling up a little.

“It’s gonna take six weeks or so, I’m afraid, but yeah, she’ll be good as new.”

“I … Dad, are you sure we can …?”  
“Yes. We can afford it. Especially given the bad news.”  
“Which is?”

“I have to head back out to finish the trip. Later today.”  
“I … kind of assumed you’d have to.”

“I didn’t,” he states with more than a little resentment. “They got a fill-in and I thought I’d be able to be here for a bit but turns out the fill-in messed up big time; cost them several days that have to be made up.”  
“That’s not good.”  
“Well,” Larry shrugs, “it made them realise what an asset yours truly really is. I have to go for three days, but they’re making it worth our while, that’s for sure. And there’s a big pay increase coming too.”

“That’s great, Dad!”

“And once I’m back from this trip, I’m taking three weeks’ vacation, so I’ll be here until you’re fully recuperated.”  
“So … what you’re saying is that your bad news is really mostly, almost entirely, good news?”

“Apart from the fact that I’m leaving my little girl the day she gets out of hospital?” Larry cringes.

“Dad, I’m fine on my own. You know that.”  
“Yeah, well, we can debate that another time, Chicken,” he says, shaking his head. “But right now, for the next few days, you _won’t_ be on your own.”  
“I’m a little old for a babysitter!” she teases.

“I know, honey. It’s okay, I just asked …”  
“Dad, please tell me you didn’t ask Brooke to come and stay?” she interrupts, panicked at the thought.

“No,” Larry says, though he’s clearly curious as to why that would have been such an issue. He knows better than to press on that though. “I asked Nathan to get you to and from school and to be here as much as he can around practice.”

“You know … this you and Nathan getting on thing is … really weird. It’s like some … alternative universe or something.”

“Well, I don’t know about any _other_ universes, but in this one, you are going to have a nap.”

He leans down to kiss her on the temple, and she frowns a little frown and he repeats the motion.

“Just in case you don’t wake up before I head out,” he says with a wink.

“Yeah right,” she mutters, “Like I’ll be able to sleep.”

He’s right. She’s wrong. When she wakes up, she can immediately tell by the light in the room that she’s been out for hours. There’s someone in the room, and she would freak out about that, but it only takes a second for her to recognise the scent.

Nathan, working at her small desk, checks his watch when he sees her open eyes, tells her she’s been out for nearly four hours and that Larry has gone.

They spend the late afternoon and early evening working on homework, she in bed, he at her desk, and she finds herself chuckling when she realises that she doesn’t think they’ve ever really done this; sit quietly in the same room, each working on their school assignments.

She closes her last book with a sigh, says “Done!”, then flops back against the pillows.

Nathan tells her he’s not far off being done too, that he’ll go and get them some dinner shortly. She feels like every time she speaks, or he speaks, even if it’s something as basic as dinner arrangements, he then hesitates, as if he’s waiting for something. But she’s not sure. Not enough to ask him, anyway.

He closes his book and adds it to the short stack of others, stands and stretches out his back and rotates his neck and shoulders. Looks at her expectantly for a long moment, then shakes himself out of his reverie.

“Right,” he says, “Chinese or Thai? Or something else?

“Burger and fries?” she suggests hopefully.

“Sure,” he grins. “I’ll head out, be back in a bit. Oh, and by the way, your Dad gave me a key and he said you have to use yours. You’re not allowed to leave the door unlocked anymore. I’m the … _enforcer_ apparently.”

“Oh my God,” she mutters, “you two ganging up against me is seriously weird.”

“We care about you,” he shrugs, then pauses. Waits. She’s sure of it now, the pause and wait after he speaks; what’s that about? He sighs a little then grabs his keys and wallet and tells her he’ll be back. Then he’s gone.

He dwells on it as he’s driving; he knows he’s doing it, pausing expectantly after almost every verbal exchange. He just … can’t bring himself to raise the issue, the conversation in the hospital. The _‘what if I wasn’t’_. He doesn’t know how much of his admission she’d heard. Maybe he should just ask her, about that, and about trying again, about being together again. But … the thing is, he honestly thinks it’ll destroy him if she says that’s not what she meant, or she did mean it in the moment, but that she wasn’t thinking straight, or that she’s changed her mind. It’s not like she hasn’t been doing a bit of that lately; changing her mind. And God, the thought of it; the thought of her being with … Lucas? It makes him feel physically ill. The thought of her being with anyone else but him makes him feel off, but that … with _Lucas?_ His … half-brother. Fuck. No. He just … no. But he can’t make himself ask her straight out, so he’s been doing that half-assed, pitiful waiting after every exchange … hoping she’ll bring it up. She was always gutsier than him on … emotions. He’ll … God knows what he’ll do. Probably keep bargaining with himself that he’ll do it – bring it up - if she doesn’t by the end of the day, or the end of the weekend, or the end of next week …

Once he’s back with the food, he helps her downstairs to the living room to eat, clears up, comes and sits down next to her and goes to turn on the TV, but she reaches out and grabs his wrist to stop him. He turns, eyebrows raised in question and waits.

“Hey,” she says softly. “Thank you.”  
“For?  
“Looking after me; staying with me this afternoon, getting dinner, helping me downstairs.”

“I’ll always be there to help you out, Peyt.”  
“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“And, me for you, too. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” he nods, “of course. You have been for the last year and a half. More. I know if nothing I did before made you give up on being there for me when the shit hits, then nothing I can do in the future will.”  
“’Cos you’re being a better guy?”  
“Trying.”  
“Succeeding.”

“I … I’m glad you think so.”

“So … me being there for you _when the shit hits …_ that’s why I want to ask you about …” she trails off, a little uncertain about how to phrase it.

“The uppers?” he guesses.

“Yeah. I … we haven’t really …”

“Talked about that. I know. It’s just …”  
“Nathan, why did you do it?” she entreats, taking his hands in hers. “You are by far the best player the Ravens have. I mean … look, even if you won’t admit it, we know Lucas has potential, right? But he’s got a way to go before he can take some of the load off you … but you ... you’ve _never_ needed that shit. I just … I’m … I’m really worried …”  
“That I’ll do it again?” he interrupts. “I won’t! I promise.”  
“Well, okay, great, that’s good to hear. And that was worrying me. But I … I’m worried about how it got to that point. I mean … what was going on with you?”

“It wasn’t us,” he says emphatically. “I don’t want you to think that this has got anything to do with us splitting up. It’s not your …”  
“So what was going on?”

“I … it was a few things, I think … the Cove City game was just … mega pressure. Whitey was on my case. My Dad was just … being an unbelievable prick. The stuff with Lucas. I … I dunno’ … it all just got to be too much and …”  
“You had no one to talk to? Your Mom? Tim?”  
He scoffs.

“Jesus, it was Tim that helped me get the stuff. And my Mom’s a freaking train wreck at the moment. And I didn’t have …”

“Didn’t have what?”

He looks away, shakes his head, but she turns his head back to face her, leaving her palm at the side of his face, stroking her thumb against his jaw.

“Me?” she suggests. “You didn’t have me to talk to. That’s what you were going to say, right?”

He’s quiet, eyes still looking down but she scrunches down and peeks up at him and that stroking of her thumb on his jaw mesmerises him a little and he can’t help but meet her eyes, his dark blue held by her green.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” she presses. “But you didn’t want to say so because you don’t want me to feel … guilty, or responsible or whatever.”

He tilts his head in a reluctant confirmation and she leans forward, her thumb still caressing his jaw, and presses a kiss to his cheek.

“So,” she says, “I’m not gonna feel guilty, okay? As long as you promise me that you’ll let me be there for you from now on. Okay?”

“If I let you be there for me,” he says, “are you gonna let me there for you too?”

“You’re here now, aren’t you?” she says with a grin. “You’ve been at the hospital for hours every day. You _are_ here for me.”

“Yeah, but you _always_ were ... there for me.”

“Okay, it’s nice that you think that, but I mean … _for real_ now. Like, not being such a … strong, silent type … like not thinking you have to deal with Dan all on your own. ‘Cos you know he’s not gonna change, Nate. He’s always gonna be …”  
“A bastard?”

She smiles and shakes her head and yawns. And he tells her she should get upstairs to bed, that she still needs her sleep.

“Yeah,” she agrees. “So … we’re good?”

“SS Mutual Appreciation Society cleared for launch,” he quips.

“And _suppor_ t,” she emphasises, standing up a little shakily. “Not just appreciation. Support.”

“I think I better help you,” he says, rushing to his feet and, while she protests initially, a couple of wobbly steps tells her he’s right; she needs to lean on him. In more ways than one, perhaps.

She changes in her bathroom while he gathers up his schoolwork and packs his backpack. When she comes out, wearing an old shirt with the sleeves freshly cut off it to make room for the cast on her wrist and the dressing on her shoulder, with the newly removed sleeves hanging limply in her hand, he’s standing there, ready to go, just waiting until she’s back in the room so he can tell her goodbye and that, tomorrow being Saturday, he has an early practice, but he’ll be by after that and he’ll stay for the day.

He doesn’t know how she’s going to sleep with the cast and the bandaging, except that she looks so wiped out maybe that will help.

He goes to leave, after telling her to stop thanking him when she tries multiple times to do so but stops in the doorway and turns around.

“Are you really okay?”  
“What?” she asks, dragging her good hand through her hair. “Yeah.”  
“’Cos …”

“’Cos?”  
“’Cos I can stay over; I mean, if you want.”

“Stay?”  
“If you don’t want to be on your own.”  
“Um …” she chews her lip for a moment, and he can see the battle in her head.

“It’s okay,” he says softly.

“Really?”  
“Really. You know … _mutual support_ and all?”  
“Thanks. That would be … that would be … good. Really good, actually.”

“Alright,” he says, stepping towards her then, with his hands on her hips, steering her towards the bed. “C’mon, cripple; get into bed.”

She stops and looks at him, a little puzzled, maybe even a little cross.

“What?”  
“Really, Nathan?”  
“What!?”  
“The right side?”  
“What?”  
“We dated for a year and a half and I don’t even know how many nights you stayed here and you’re steering me to the right side of the bed?”

“Yeah?”  
“I _hate_ the right side,” she whines. “Seriously? If you don’t know that after all this …”

“I _do_ know that!” he exclaims. “I’m not a complete idiot.”

She scoffs, taps her foot a little, waits.

“You hate the right side of the bed,” he repeats, “and you also prefer to sleep on your left side, and you prefer facing the outside of the bed. You always wanted me to sleep between you and the doorway. You said it’s ‘cos you liked the breeze from the window, but I always thought it just …”

“Just what?”  
“Made you feel safer. Or something.”

“If you know so much then why the right side?”  
“Because what I don’t know is which of all of those preferences of yours is the most important.”  
“What?”

“Peyton, you usually sleep on your left side.”  
“And?”  
“Doh! Your shoulder?”

“Oh. Right.”

“So, if it’s sleeping on your left side that’s most important, you’re screwed. But if lying on your other side is okay, but you really have to face the outside of the bed, then you’re gonna need to switch sides of the bed. If it’s the left side of the bed that’s most important, being by the window, then you’ll have to lie on your other side facing the middle or on your back. And … so … what’s it gonna be?”

“Stay on the left side of the bed and, sleep on my back,” she says without a thought.

“Okay.”  
“You look doubtful.”  
“I just think … nope,” he changes tack, shaking his head then gestures with his hand. “Away you go. Take the left side.”

She eyes him and frowns, steps to the left side of the bed and settles herself in. On her back. And wriggles. And fidgets. And eventually stills. Frowning. He shakes his head and laughs then pulls his T-shirt over his head and lies down on top of the covers.

“Don’t be stupid,” she says with a huffy tone.

“What now?” he asks with an exaggerated sigh.

“Get in properly,” she says poking her finger into his ribs. “And take your jeans off or you’ll be too hot.”

“I just thought …”  
“Nathan, just do it.”

He stands and removes his jeans while she playacts covering her eyes, then moves her hand to pull back the covers for him. He settles quickly, while she continues to huff and wriggle and …

“Nate?” she eventually says in a small voice.

“You want to switch sides, don’t you?” he laughs, doing his best to keep the _‘I told you so’_ look at bay.

“I don’t think I can sleep on my back.”

“So … you want to switch sides?”

“I want to switch sides. Is that okay?”

He chuckles and stands, walks around the bed while she wriggles her way over to the other side. He gets in again, meets her gaze and laughs.

“So … I was right?” he says smugly.

“You might have been, if you’d actually said what you were thinking at the beginning. But you didn’t. So, you don’t get the points.”

“Of course. Now, shut up and go to sleep.”

She rolls her eyes, turns on to her right side and sighs.

“You’re still not ...?” he asks.

“Nope.”

He sighs dramatically to tease her then stands, pulls her up and pushes her gently away from the bed.

“What are you …?”  
He pulls the bedclothes away from the foot of the bed, walks around and repositions them so that the top is at the foot of the bed, then moves all of the pillows, mumbling about how many of them there are, to the foot of the bed.

“I …”

“Now you can sleep facing the outside of the bed, and the window. You’ll just have to suck up sleeping on your right side, ‘cos I’m not a magician. Okay?”  
She looks from him to the bed, and back, then a side smile splits her face as she clambers into bed.

“Nate?”  
“Uh-huh?”  
“Thanks.”

“You already said that,” he reminds her as he gets into bed behind her.

“I know. I just … I mean it.”  
“Anything you need, Peyt.”

“Really?” she asks, turning her head to look at him over her shoulder.

“Yeah.”

He watches while she chews her lip.

“What do you want now?” he asks with a dry chuckle.

“Spoons?”

He rolls his eyes at her but shuffles forward and wraps an arm over her hip.

“Dork,” he mutters into her shoulder.

“Jerk,” she retorts.

“Go to sleep. You need to rest.”

“It’s weird; lying on my right side.”

“You’re okay,” he says gently, tightening his arm around her, careful not to press on any of her injuries. “I’ve got you.”  
  


The first thought Nathan has when he wakes up is that he’s just had the best night’s sleep he’s had in weeks. The second thought he has is that he knows why; he’s woken up in Peyton’s room, in Peyton’s bed, with his arm around Peyton – low on her hips so as not to hurt her ribs - and his chin tucked into the nape of her neck. And it feels … it feels like all those other mornings when he woke up, his hips tucked in behind hers, with the usual morning hard on pressing into her sexy ass.

He breathes; inhales her familiar scent. Spreads his fingers hesitantly over her stomach. Wishes. Wishes she hadn’t, apparently, forgotten that conversation in the hospital. Wishes he could, as he used to, buck his hips against her, just a little, his usual cheeky test to see if she was awake and keen. But that would be a dick move. No pun intended.

So, he breathes. Can’t help but think over the last few weeks. Wonders if he’s imagining that she’s … softened a little. Softened a lot, really. Wonders if the hard edges and abrasive attitude were as much his fault as hers; _more_ his fault than hers. Knows they were. Knows, deep, deep down in his gut, that he let her down, let himself down. Wishes he could take it back. Wishes he wasn’t a horny sixteen-year-old that may be able to hold himself back from bucking suggestively into her but can’t resist the smallest of wriggles and the slightest of presses into her. Just a little friction.

Just as he moves, she makes that cute little half snuffle, half cat mewl sound that she makes when she’s edging out of sleep. He stills. Breathes. Thinks about easing back away from her, but there’s a moment of infinite stillness, then she presses back into him. Arches her back a little and presses her ass back into him more. Sighs. He daren’t move. Or breathe.

“Mmm,” she sighs lightly, resting her hand over his, which is still spread wide and flat across her stomach.

He kisses her shoulder blade, half sweetly, half in question and he feels rather than sees her smile that amazing soft smile that he used to see a lot and hasn’t seen so much lately. At all, really.

She turns her head to kiss him, but he pulls back a fraction, then realises he’s still got his hips pressed against her ass and he pulls back jerkily.

“Sorry,” she whispers, flushing with embarrassment at apparently misreading him, “you … you’re … I thought ...”  
“Yeah,” he says, “sorry. Morning … you know.”  
“Guy thing, right?”

“Yeah, but … also a _you_ thing.”

“Why pull away then?” she asks, turning to lie on her back, retaining his hand on her.

“I … you’re just out of the hospital.”  
“I’m fine.”  
“And ... I mean … we’re not ...”

“You’ve been amazing this week, Nathan.”  
“What is this? A reward for being a good boy?” he teases.

“Jerk!”

They grin at each other.

“So … you don’t want to?” she asks lightly, her fingertips fidgeting against his chest.

“I always want to, you know that.”  
“Well … yeah … that’s what got you into so much trouble …”  
“I mean I always want to _with you_!” he protests.

“Then …”  
“It’s not … I mean … I don’t want to hurt you.”

“So, be careful of my wrist and shoulder, then.”  
“I didn’t mean physically,” he counters, making her frown. “I mean … you don’t do this. You don’t do casual and we’re not ... and I don’t want to assume … and get it wrong …”  
“Assume what?”  
“I don’t even know,” he admits.  
“I just … you really have been amazing this week and I dunno … I feel close to you. Closer than I have in a really long time.”  
“And you’re horny?” he teases with a chuckle and a classic Nathan Scott smirk.

“You’re the one with the raging hard on,” she teases right back, her fingertips dancing along the top of his boxers.  
“Girls are so lucky they can hide it,” he groans, with the slightest of blushes. That makes her smile. He _never_ blushes.  
“You could always tell,” she says, her other fingertips moving over the back of his hand.  
“Tell what?”  
“You know … when I …”

“When you wanted a little Scott action?” he asks with a suggestive wriggle of his eyebrow.

“Jerk! Again!”

“I could too,” he says, with more than a little pride. “Your eyes got kind of lazy and went a darker green.”

Peyton looks at him, more than a little surprised that he’d noticed that. _Really_ surprised that he was _admitting_ he’d noticed that.

“Kind of like they are now,” he comments. “And your breathing gets shallow.”

Yes, they’re both very aware that he’s switched to the present tense.

She tucks her hair back, a little coyly, and can feel pinkness creeping up her chest.

“And you tuck your hair back behind your ear ... and yup … bite your lip. Don’t do that.”

“What? Bite my lip?”  
“Peyt …”

“You used to say I shouldn’t bite my lip ‘cos that was your job,” she teases.

“I …”

“You won’t hurt me,” she says, looking at him hazily from lowered lids, her teeth scraping across her lip still.  
“What is this?” he asks pointedly.

“Getting all girly on me, Scott?”  
He moves, quick as a flash and yet still protective of her injuries, so that he’s hovering over her, holding his upper body high, pressing his hips down and bucking against her a little. God, even that little bit of contact is amazing. But leaves him wanting more. More pressure. More friction. Just … more.

“This feel girly to you?” he challenges, slipping his knee between her thighs and rocking his tell-tale arousal against her thigh. She reaches up to kiss him, but he pulls back a little again, not losing eye contact.

“You need to answer me, Peyton,” he says, somewhere between a demand and a plea. “What is this?”

“I just … the last few weeks have been so weird,” she says hesitantly. “Off. And I haven’t felt like … me and … I just want to feel like _me_ again.”  
His hand sweeps under the shirt and up, then down again, from beside her breast, down over her waist and to her hip, where the pad of his thumb makes lazy sweeping strokes.

“Well,” he says with an arched eyebrow and a twitching grin, “you feel like you, to me.”

She kisses him and this time he responds, but gently, softly. As he pulls back a little their eyes meet and hers hold so many questions. In his head, he hears a voice. Larry Sawyer’s voice.

_“I need you to go to the hospital.”_

_“Nathan, son … God, I haven’t been clear. It’s not me in there … it’s Peyton.”_

He can’t keep hearing those words. He needs to get them out of his head and finds himself in a slow-motion series of movements to rid himself of his boxers, to, one by one, release the buttons on the old, soft cotton shirt she’s wearing.

“This is … is this my shirt?” he asks, mumbling, at one point, his lips somewhere between her navel and the fragile looking dip between her breasts.

“It was,” she breathes, her fingernails etching patterns on his scalp as he releases the last button, then goes to slide the fabric away from her good shoulder first. She reaches her good hand up to stop him.

“You want it left on?” he asks, pulling back a little.

“I … it smells like … yeah … is that okay?”  
“Fuck, yes.”

“Wh …?”  
“You look hot in my clothes.”

“Possessive much?” she smiles against his lips, making him groan as her tongue swoops into his mouth.

He mumbles something into her mouth. _Mine_ , she thinks. Knows. She knows. Of course, she knows.

His fingertips slip under her hips and his thumbs tap on her hipbones. Silent signal. _Lift up._

She does, holding his navy gaze.

He deftly slides her underwear down, doesn’t blink. Stares her down. Sweeps his thumbs over her hipbones. Once. Twice. Again. Again. Holds her stare until she feels she’s literally falling into him. Moves forward, slowly, slowly, until her eyes blur but still she can’t blink as he gets closer. Closer. Links his hand with hers with interwoven fingers. Licks into her mouth. Deep. Slow. Mouths one word with an accompany growl. No mistaking it this time. _Mine._

She can feel him against her. So close. So ready. So … him. Feels his large palm slide up her thigh, then down again, sighs as his fingers wrap behind her knee, as he confidently eases her leg out and up, pins it to his side, just at his hip, so he can press himself closer to her. Feels the pale, smooth skin over his hip bones against her skin. Feels him against her core. Just … there. Can swear she feels them both pulsing together. Holds her breath and feels something release in her mind; God she has missed this. She has missed _him._ She presses her thigh against his hip and grinds against him a little, grins when a groan comes from deep in his chest and he bucks against her.

Then, when he catches her smug grin, he mutters at her and teases her, slides up and down, presses right to her then backs off, presses again, enters just a little, then retreats, slides again, pauses and caresses her hip bone with his thumb. Leans in as if to kiss her then hovers, his lips just millimetres from hers, their breaths mingling. Teases her again, slides and presses in, just a tiny, tiny bit more than before, and retreats again.

_“Nathan.”_

It’s a sigh and a plea and he can hear it; she _needs_ him. He plants his hands flat, firmly and holds himself still, _right there_ , then leans down and kisses her long and hard and achingly, heartstoppingly slowly. Nips at her bottom lip just a little, explores that mouth, that he knows so well, with his tongue.

“God,” she whispers when he pulls back a little, angles her hips up and presses her thighs hard around his hips and breathes out a long, sigh of a breath.

“Fuck,” he groans when she tilts her hips again and slides against him. “Jesus, you’re sexy. I want you so fucking much.”

“Well,” she says with a light, teasing lilt, “I’m wearing just a shirt – your shirt - and you are …” she sweeps her gaze appreciatively down this chest to where they’re bodies are rocking together, “you are wearing _absolutely nothing_ and so … apparently … you can have me.”  
“Yeah?” he grins. “You do appear to be …” he wriggles his eyebrows. “ _Ready.”_

“Yeah; you just have to stop being such a fucking tease.”

He laughs and, dropping his head between his shoulders to kiss her again, lightly and slowly, licking into her mouth again, then teasing her lips, while he rocks his hips forward, teasing and sliding again. She moves her leg and another groan escapes him when he feels her heel press into him, right under his ass, between his thighs, a ‘hurry up’ if ever there was one.

Their eyes meet and they still, both taking deep breaths. Her eyelids flutter and her irises deepen into yet another realm of emerald and damn, but that is just about the sexiest thing ever, he thinks.

Finally, just as she thinks he’s preparing to push into her, _at freaking last_ , he halts, pulls back and kisses the side of her hand, which he still holds, their fingers laced together. He looks at her, a little hesitantly, then kisses the side of her thumb as that voice echoes in his head again.

_“I don’t know how bad. All I know is it was a car accident and she was thrown into the car door, hard, and needs surgery. I’m trying to find out more.”_

He opens his mouth to speak then doesn’t, prompting her to nudge him with her knee. A _what were you going to say_ nudge.

“I … um … hate to kill the mood, but …”  
“What?”

“The questions they tell us in health ed that we’re supposed to ask?”

“Oh,” she says with a gorgeous little blush. “Yeah. Of course. Um … nothing … transmittable.”

“Yeah,” he nods. “Me too. Are you …?”  
“ _So_ ready,” she replies huskily, tilting her hips against him.

He chuckles. “Babe, I know _that_.”

She can’t help but smile a little, then nudges him with her knee again. She’ll ignore the _babe_. For now.  
“Um … I meant … are you still on the pill?” he asks softly, reluctantly, in response to her prompt. “I just … I don’t have any condoms.”  
“Oh. Yeah. Yeah. I am.”

For a split second, he can’t help himself, he wonders if that means there’s been a reason, a need, for her to be. Has there been anyone else? He squashes the thought; he knows he has no right. But she sees it. She sees his thoughts, the way she always has, and her palm rests lightly at his cheek.

“No,” she says with a tiny shake of her head. “No one,” she whispers as she wraps her leg around him again, presses her heel into the small of his back then sighs as his palm slips up the back of her leg again. He can’t help it; he’s filled with relief and pride and yeah, okay, possessiveness and he feels himself swell against her even more. She’s his. Still his and his alone.

_“Peyton’s in the hospital.”_

“Me too,” he murmurs, watching her eyes widen in surprise. “Not since … just so you know, I haven’t. I mean, since we broke up, there hasn’t been anyone.”  
“Really?”

“Really. That so hard to believe?”  
“Little bit, yeah,” she chuckles.

But her smile is tender, and her eyes are bright. They widen then flutter closed as he finally enters her. _Like they always did._ There’s that tiny little twitch of a smile at the corner of her mouth as he eases, teasingly slowly, home. _As there always was._ And, as his hips make that first time-stopping withdrawal and plunge forward, a satisfied sigh escapes her perfect lips. _As it always did._

_“Peyton’s in the hospital.”_

And he has no idea why he ever needed anything other than this; why he ever thought he needed anyone other than her – her eyelids fluttering, her secret smile, her satisfied sigh. He’d told her about being one of the few that saw the other side of her. He can’t even begin to articulate how much it means that he’s, still, the only one that seen this; her eyelids fluttering as he thrusts, withdraws, thrusts home again; her smile as her body enfolds him; her sigh as _he_ , and _only he_ , makes her body pulse and thrum.

And it’s not just that it’s enough, he realises; it’s that it’s _everything_. She’s the sexiest girl _ever_ and she’s responding to _him_ and tilting her hips against _him_ and tipping her head back allowing _him_ access to her slender throat, which he kisses with an open mouth, before claiming her lips with his.

_“Peyton’s in the hospital.”_

He feels … overwhelmed and overcome and … just filled with want and passion and sheer awe. Her breath hitches when he pulls back a little and her eyelids open lazily to reveal dark, dark pools of green. Her hips buck - just a little - and she clenches around him – just a little – and he breathes her in, carries their entwined hands to his lips and kisses the side of her thumb again.

There’s a tiny flash of question in those languid eyes of hers. He responds by kissing her deeply, passionately, unreservedly, while he carries their still meshed hands to the pillow above her head. He flattens his other hand against the mattress at the side of her ribcage, ensuring he isn’t in danger of knocking her injured shoulder or arm, then arches, his navy-blue gaze holding hers as he prepares to gather tempo.

At some point, he pauses, teasing her with a few moments of controlled stillness, dropping his mouth to hers and kissing her slowly, lazily, while they throb together, unmoving, in perfect stillness. He touches his lips to hers briefly as he draws in a breath and she suddenly recognises the look in his eye.

_He walked her up to the door but didn’t go into the house. Her Dad was home, after all. He’d met her Dad only a couple of times; slightly awkward encounters during which Larry Sawyer eyeballed Nathan fiercely and Nathan squirmed uncomfortably. All Nathan could think about during such moments was that if Peyton’s Dad could look at him so ferociously now, what would it be like when they were sleeping together? Because Dads of daughters as hot as Peyton Sawyer must have super-power radar when it came to that stuff, right? Five months, they’d been dating. And he wasn’t pushing. But he knew they were getting closer. She was getting closer to being ready; every time they were alone together her body told him that. And he was getting closer too. Not to being ready to sleep with her; he’d freely admit he’d been ready to do that from the second she agreed to go out with him the first time. (Hell, he’d been ready to sleep with her since the first time he even thought about asking her to go out with him. Maybe he wouldn’t admit exactly when that was though. Taking months to screw up the courage wasn’t something he’d concede.) Ready though … ready to do something else, to say something … important._

_He got a look in his eye as they pulled apart from their doorstep goodnight kiss. Well, make out. Well, somewhere between kiss and make out … toned down a little, a lot, just in case her Dad was watching._

_“What?” she asked, her fingers toying with the top button on his shirt._

_“Nothing.”_

_“Nathan! What?”_

_“I …”_

_“You what?”_

_“I … might be falling in love with you … or something?” he all but whispered, looking less than comfortable._

_She kissed him without a word, her fingers trailing down his chest as she stepped back, turned and went inside, leant back against door, tipped her head back and grinned from ear to ear. Then turned herself around, turned the doorknob, opened the door and stuck just her head out. He was halfway down the path, but stopped, turned and waited wordlessly for her to speak._

_“Me too,” she said shyly. “Or something.”_

  
When she recognises that look here and now, she palms his cheek and smiles knowingly.

“What?” he asks, squeezing her hand a little.

“Nothing,” she says with a little shake of her head. “Or …”

“Or … something?” he says tentatively.

“Or … something,” she lets out, without intending to, as he moves within her again. Moves with all the control he can muster, holding back and holding back and holding back, taking every bit of will power he has, determined for her to go first. At last, her back arches high and her long, silken thighs clamp, vise-like, at his hips. She draws in a long breath and lets it out in a long, moaning sigh as he feels her around him, fluttering frantically as, at last, her orgasm hits. For a second, he takes in her face; flushed, wanton, _beautiful._ Then she _squeezes_ around him, and he absolutely shatters, coming harder, he thinks, than he ever has before.

On his side, his palm resting lightly on her stomach, he feels her watching him and opens his eyes, his heart lurching in his chest at the look she’s wearing. He tilts his head, presses his palm down a little. _Tell me what you’re thinking_.

“What was that?” she asks, awestruck.

“I ... um ... it was ...”  
“Amazing,” she breathes.  
He chuckles and drops his head to kiss her shoulder.

“Isn’t it always?” he teases.

“Nathan, I’m _serious_. That was ... you were …”  
“What?” he asks, a little embarrassed. But he knows what she means. He may not be articulate, he may not even be particularly romantic in the way he shows his feelings, but he _does_ feel. And he felt that. He felt the difference.  
“You were so ... _here_ with me. Present.”  
“Yeah I … intense, huh?”

“Intense and ... I don’t know how to ...”  
“Powerful?”

“Yes. Intense. Powerful. But …”  
“What?” he insists.  
“You’ll think I’m a girl.”  
“I should bloody well hope so ... after that …”  
They laugh together for a moment then he drops the sweetest, lightest of tiny kisses on her lips.

“Tell me,” he encourages her.  
“Promise you won’t laugh?”  
“Sure.”  
“Um … _loving?_ I think.”  
“What do you mean?”

“We … you … you’ve never been like that before. I can’t explain it.”  
“I can.”  
“Yeah?”

“Promise you won’t laugh,” he quips, using her words from mere moments before.

“Sure.”

“When your Dad called me, and said you’d been in a car wreck, I ... I swear my heart stopped. I ... realised that losing you was … I just _can’t_ do it _,_ Peyton. Breaking up was one thing, even though I didn’t want that either, but … not having you _at all_? I just _can’t_. I mean ... I know why you dumped my sorry ass and all. But I can’t not have you in my life, I know we’re not together and you probably just want to be … whatever. But when he said … hospital and … and surgery ... I just … I just _get it_ now. How _amazing_ you are.”  
Those big green eyes of hers search his, and her palms move back to frame his face again and, while he looks at her, she reaches up to kiss him softly.

“What are you saying?” she asks him.

“You said this week I’ve been …”  
“Amazing. Yeah.”

“But _you’ve_ always been amazing,” he says firmly. “I … I just had to be there with you. I had to know you were okay. And I … I just did what I should’ve been doing all along.”

“Which is what, exactly?”  
“Take care of you. See you. Be ... _with_ you.”

“Nathan ... I ... this …”  
“ _’Wasn’t supposed to be that’_?” he teases gently, very aware of their not so distant conversation.

“Jerk!” she exclaims, though her tone is rather fond. “For the _third_ time.”  
“Sorry.”  
“No! Don’t be sorry. I ... I love the way you tease me.”  
“Oh yeah?” he says suggestively, slipping his hand across her hip. “This kind of teasing too?”  
“Oh … mmmm … okay … stop …”  
“Really?”

“Nathan … once was …”  
“Intense. Powerful. Loving. Your words, babe.”

“But _again_?” she asks, ignoring the _babe_. Again. “Twice would be …”

And yeah, he has to have this conversation. He has to know. He has to know right now.  
“Twice would be you forgiving me for being an asshole and giving me one last chance to prove that I _am_ the guy you know I can be.”

She sighs and frowns, closes her eyelids against his intense stare.

“You don’t want to,” he sighs, feeling the defeat. “I …”  
“I didn’t think you wanted that,” she begins to explain before changing tack. “I mean, I thought maybe you were …”  
“What?”  
“I dunno. Suggesting friends with benefits or …”

“No,” he interrupts, speaking insistently.  
“No?”  
“I ... I can’t do that, Peyt. Not with you. Not now.”

“Not now?”

“Not after the last week. I can be your friend, Peyton. If that’s what you want me to be, I can do that. You’re … I know now how important you are to me. I need you in my life. I’ll always need you in my life. And I need you to know that if this was the last time we ever … were _together_ … if that was the last time I ever get to be with you, be … _part of you_ , I get it. And … I guess I’ll always have feelings for you, Peyton. I’ll always bet there for you, but I can’t do friends with benefits. It’s ... that would be too fucked up now.”

“Why would it be too fucked up?”

“Because the second your Dad said Peyton’s in the hospital, I finally knew what it meant; loving you, I mean. And there’s no _or something_ about,” he adds with a wry smile. “I _love_ you. I’ll … be just friends if that’s what you want, Peyt, I will. But when it comes to … anything else. It’s … it’s all or nothing. I … couldn’t be with you like this and not … have all of …”  
He stops. He has to. Because she’s kissing the words away.

“Tell me that means I get another shot,” he breathes against her lips when she finally moves back a little. “Please tell me …”

“I … thought I kinda told you that at the hospital.”

God, the _relief._ He feels it fill him, literally fill him, as if he’s a glass filling with cool, clear thirst-quenching water. He gulps, rests his head against her momentarily.  
“I thought you’d forgotten … I thought the meds maybe …”

“I thought you didn’t really want to …”  
“No! I do. I really do. So … tell me,” he says pulling his head back and locking gazes. “Please … just tell me straight. Please.”

She smiles, takes his face in her hands again, strokes her thumbs across his bottom lip, over his jaw. Presses her lips to his in a whisper soft kiss before she meets his intense, navy blue gaze again.  
“You get another shot.”

“I won’t screw it up,” he promises, his eyes closed against the emotion; the pleasure - and the pain - of this moment. “I’ll be perfect.”  
“Oh, you so _will_ screw it up,” she laughs at him, making him pout momentarily before she continues. “And so will I,” she adds. “We’re not perfect. Baby, I don’t need you to be perfect; I just need you to be perfect _for me_ and the biggest part of that is being _honest_. And I want you to be there like you have been for the last week.”

“Okay.”  
“And I want you to kick ass on the court all season.”  
“Okay.”  
“And I want you to do that intense powerful thing again.”

“That can be arranged.”

“And I want you to say it again.”  
“Say what?” he teases, and she pokes him. Hard.

“Ooohhh,” he says with an over-acted look of recognition on his handsome face, “you want me to say that I love you?”

“Yeah. That.”  
He kisses her. A lot. Lots of tiny, sweet little kisses on her perfect, sweet lips. Dozens of them. Occasionally punctuated by the occasional deep, searching (yes, intense and powerful) exploration of her mouth.

“I love you,” he eventually says, staring into her eyes, his breath heavy and languid.  
“I love you too.”  
“Yeah?”  
“Yeah,” she says with a little confirming nod.

“You’re so fucking beautiful it hurts, you know that?”

She rests her palm on his chest, over his heart, looking at him.

“Hurts here?” she asks, and can’t help thinking of another occasion, not so long ago and yet a million years ago, when another hand was placed over her own heart. Somehow this moment, right here, right now, is just so much more … _real_ , so much more authentic.

“Yeah,” he agrees, placing his hand over hers.  
“Me too,” she admits. “That’s why it always hurt so much when ...”  
“I’ll never do it again,” he cuts in. “I’ll never cheat on you again, I promise. Can you believe me?”  
“I believe _in_ you. You know I have big trust issues but … I’ll try.”  
“Thank you,” he murmurs against her lips.

“You really have to stop that,” she laughs, pushing him away.

“Nope,” he counters, dipping his head to kiss her again.

“Nathan!” she laughs, twisting her face away. “You have to!”  
“Why?”  
“Because if you don’t get your ass out of my bed in the next two minutes, you’re going to be late to practice.”

“No,” he protests, as he reaches for his watch, “it’s only seven … fuck!”

She laughs, and pulls the covers off him.

“Told you! Go. Go tear it up.”

“I’ll come back after,” he declares as he pulls on boxers then grabs his jeans.

“Bottom drawer,” she says, pointing. “Basketball shorts and …”  
“You’re awesome,” he grins, hauling shorts and a Ravens practice jersey out of the drawer and dressing quickly.

“And don’t you forget it!” she instructs as he flies at her, drops a kiss on her lips and scrambles out the bedroom door. “Nathan! Keys!” she yells, grabbing them, and his wallet off her nightstand with her good hand and lobbing them into the doorway just as he reappears. He catches cleanly, grins again then he’s gone.

When he returns, he’s carrying coffees and a paper bag of sandwiches and donuts.

“See?” he says as he drops them on the coffee table in front of her, “I can be awesome, too!”

“Long practice,” she observes.

“Yeah. Whitey was a real ballbuster today. And the sandwich place was busy; took a while.”  
“You didn’t have to …”  
“It’s your favourite sandwich place,” he shrugs. “Plus, I had to get gas, so I was over that way.”

“Well, I appreciate it. Thank you,” she says, resting her palm on his thigh and leaning in to kiss his cheek.

“Yeah.”  
Something in his tone catches her attention and she looks at him, slowly pulling her hand away.

“And?” she asks.

He turns to meet her gaze, opens his mouth, then closes it again.

“Nathan?”  
“I … you asked me to be honest with you, right?” he asks nervously.

“Yes,” she answers with a nervous undertone.

“So … like I said …. I had to get gas on way home.”  
“And?”  
“And while I was waiting for the pump, Jen Bakerfield crept up behind me and put her hands in my front pockets and tried to feel me up.”

“What?” she exclaims, rising to anger. “Why are you …?”  
“I’m being honest,” he says calmly, reaching for her hand. “I know I was a dick before, Peyton, but ... this is what happens. And I’m … I _was_ weak.”  
“You … so you’re saying you didn’t initiate … this thing at the gas station?”  
“No!”  
“What about … before?”

“Hardly ever. When I was really, _really_ pissed off at you, sometimes, yeah. But hardly ever. I …”  
“Girls come on to you all the time?” she asks for absolute clarification.  
“Yeah.”  
“Okay, but that’s no excuse, Nathan. Guys come on to me too.”  
“They _what!_?” he exclaims, half rising before she pulls him back to his seat. “Why didn’t you …?”  
“Tell you? Because you’d be beating up guys constantly. And that would mean you’d get benched.”   
“So ... what do I … how do I …?”  
“Keep doing what you just did,” she advises. “ _Tell_ me. You tell me when it happens, and you tell me what you did about it. That’s how you get my trust back.”  
“Okay.”  
“Anything else to report?” she asks jokingly. He looks uncomfortable for a moment, then reaches into his pocket, pulls out a crumpled post in note and passes it to her.

“What’s this?” she asks as she smooths out the little coloured square to find a string of digits on it.  
“I stopped to get you a sandwich and a coffee.”  
“I know. It’s perfect.”  
“And the barista handed me your coffee with her phone number on a post it note stuck on the lid,” he continues, gesturing towards the note.  
“ _Why_ are you telling me this, again?” she asks drily. He goes out for practice and between school and her place, he gets hit on ... twice?

“I ... just …”  
“Want me to realise how lucky I am to have you?” she teases.

“No! Well … that would be nice,” he teases back.

“It’s _really_ this often?” she asks quietly.

“Sometimes. How … how often do guys hit on you?”  
“If we were broken up, constantly. If we were okay, not at all. Unless they were from another school and didn’t know to be scared of _Nathan Scott_ ,” she emphasises his name with a put-on awestruck voice.

“I don’t want to be like that again, Peyt. I mean … I think my head’s in the right place, but I’m … I _am_ a little worried.”  
“About?”  
“What if I’m weak?”

“You’re not weak, Nathan. Can you keep being honest?”

“Yeah. I can tell you. That I can do.”

“So … then tell me. And we’ll take it from there. And …” she pauses and gives him a cheeky look. “I’m sure we can come up with some sort of appropriate reward system for when you resist all those other gorgeous girls.”  
“At least I know the next few weeks’ll be easy.”  
“Why?”  
“’Cos Principal Turner came to the practice and asked me if I’d basically be your bag boy for the next couple weeks.”  
“What!?” she protests. “Why?”  
“’Cos you’re a one wing chicken for a bit. Your Dad talked to him; said you’ll be back at school from Monday, after your check at the hospital in the morning, but that you’ll need some help with carrying stuff until your arm’s out of its sling, and the cast is off your wrist.”

“You volunteered?”  
“I was … what’s the word? I was conscripted before I volunteered, but I was about to.”  
“You’re only in about half my classes.”  
“Yeah, I talked to Haley. She’s gonna help too.”  
“You did? She … she will?”  
“Yeah, I figured you wouldn’t want Brooke or Lucas …”

“Thank you.”  
“And I’ll drive you ‘til you can drive yourself again … so, upshot? We’re gonna be together most of the time anyway. No one’s gonna try and … you know _feel me up_ or slip me their number … if you’re right there.”  
“They better not,” she grumbles.

“Or what? You’ll thump them with your cast?” he teases.

“Something like that,” she mutters. “Well, they say it takes 21 days to form a new habit … so … I guess we’ve got a shot, right?”

“We?”  
“You’re forming a new non-cheating habit. And I’m forming a new not being a bitch and making you want to cheat habit.”

“You … it wasn’t your fault.”  
“I know. But I didn’t exactly help either.”

“Think we’ll be okay?”  
“I hope so. And … this honesty thing is good, right?”

“Think you’ll make up with Brooke?”  
“Maybe,” she replies, trying hard to look casual, then giving up. “Oh, who am I kidding?” she admits, shrugging with her one good shoulder. “Probably. I mean … she’s gone after guys that I was interested in before, but ...”  
“What? When?”  
“Relax. Before you. Before us.”  
“She did?” he asks, his mind ticking over a few things.  
“Yeah. But I don’t think she ever realised, or like, really _meant_ to. She just didn’t know she was doing it, and she was always sorry when she found out that it was someone I had liked, then she’d spoil me with gifts and … I guess Lucas was just a …”  
“Honesty, right?” he cuts in.  
“Yeah?”  
“Well, I _honestly_ hate the thought of you being interested in him!”

“Even though in a roundabout way it got us back to … here? And talking? And being more honest than we ever have been?”  
“Even then.”  
“Well, anyway, given that Brooke hasn’t _knowingly_ gone after …”  
“She has,” he all but whispers.

“What?”

“She basically admitted it to Haley the other day. Before Brooke knew about your accident, she was saying how you were a bit stunned to see her with Lucas, but that you’d get over it ‘cos she’d ply you with gifts ... then she said something like … _‘like she usually did when this happened’_.”

“God,” she sighs, “what else is gonna come out?”

“Actually,” he says with a grimace, “there is one more thing. I … I really don’t know if telling you is a good idea right now, but … I need to. And I swear there’s nothing else after this.”

“Should I be standing on the other side of the room?”  
“Why?”  
“So I don’t thump _you_ with my cast?”

“Um … yeah … maybe,” he says with another grimace.

“Who was it?” she asks with a knowing tone.

“What?”  
“Who was it that you slept with? That’s what you’re leading up to, right?”

He closes his eyes, and eventually nods just one small nod.

“When?”

“Party. Couple months before we broke up that last time. I mean … we _were_ broken up. But it was one of those …”  
“Not really broken up broken up?”  
“Yeah, but … I _thought_ it was for real. I really did. I … fuck. It was still _such_ a dick thing to do.”

“Who?” she asks, though she has a pretty good idea what he’s going to say.

“I’m sorry.”  
“Who?”

“You know who, don’t you?” he asks, searching her face.  
“Yeah,” she admits. “But I’m gonna make you say it.”

“I’m … God, I’m sorry. Peyton, I’m so sorry. I …”  
“Say her name, Nathan.”

“Babe …”  
“Say her name,” she insists. “Then don’t ever, ever put me in this position again.”

He looks at her. She basically just told him that she’s going to put this to one side, that even though she knows what he’s about to say - that he’s about to admit to sleeping with her best friend – she’s going to forgive him and move on. He can’t believe how lucky he is. He can’t believe she can be so … and he doubles down in his mind; there’s no way in hell he’s going to mess up this chance.

“It was Brooke.”

“You know what? I think maybe I won’t be making up with her this time.”


	11. “A man with skin.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s weird, right?” Peyton asks, her teeth worrying her bottom lip, as they start walking towards their first class. “I mean, I’m sure you’re wondering if the worst effect of my little bump on the head having any sense that I might have had left knocked out of it and deciding to get back together with him. Again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shortish chapter. Just working on the last couple of chapters but might need to add one to the count I think as the next one is just way too long.

The check up at the hospital on Monday morning seems to take forever; Peyton keeps trying to apologise, but Nathan won’t have a bar of it, joking that he’s happy to take advantage of the fact that he has principal-endorsed permission to miss school in favour of spending time with a hot girl. Eventually, however, they are done; able to get to school just in time for their afternoon classes.

He must have been in touch with Haley while Peyton was getting the final instructions from the orthopaedic surgeon, because when they pull into the student carpark, Nathan’s tutor (and, maybe, Peyton’s friend) is waiting for them.

They compare their timetables and quickly deduce that Haley is the one best placed to help Peyton from here through to the last class of the day as the two are in all the same classes. She reminds them that the bell is due to go any minute and the three of them wander towards the classroom block, stopping inside the door, where they need to go separate ways.

“Okay,” he says, looking at Peyton, “I’ll … I’ll leave you to it.”  
He pauses, looking terribly uncertain.

“You … you text me if you need anything, alright?” he says to Peyton.

“Nathan,” she laughs. “I’ll be _fine_. I have Haley on lame duck duty until last period.”  
“Yeah, I know, but … just in case.”  
“Geeze, if I pinky promise, will you get outta here and go to class?” she teases.

“Don’t laugh at me, Sawyer,” he mock threatens, pointing at her and trying to look very serious. “I just want to be sure you’re okay.”

Her laughter quiets and she treats him to one of those slow, heart-stopping smiles of hers.

“C’mere,” she says, holding out her hand to him. He takes it and allows her to pull him in. She pauses for just a moment as his mouth gets close to hers and holds his concerned gaze until his vision blurs. Then she tiptoes up and presses a kiss to his lips.

“I’m gonna be just fine with ol’ Tutor-Girl here,” she says. “The question is, are _you_ gonna be okay?”  
“Me? Sure. Why?”

“I think you’re being all super-protective ‘cos you’re gonna miss me,” she says with a lilt in her voice and a twinkle in her eye. He chuckles and brings her hand, still in his, up to his lips and turns it over and presses a kiss into her palm.

‘Well, ‘doh,” he says, completely unembarrassed. “Of course, I’m gonna miss you. Despite the broken wing, you’re the hottest bird in school.”

“Lame joke, Nate,” she says with rolled eyes.

“Nope, lame’s when your leg’s busted, not your wrist,” he fires back.

“Ohmigod,” she groans. “Get outta here.”

He drops her hand and takes a step back then stops, grabs her hips gently and leans in, presses his lips on to hers, his hips into hers, waits for the little noise in her throat that he knows will come, followed by the way her lips open, just a little, and move with his. Stops for a second, backs off a hair’s breadth, then presses his mouth back, slides his tongue across her bottom lip.

“Yep,” he whispers against her lips, “hottest girl around. And all mine.”

“’Kay,” he says, stepping back, eyes remaining on her now slightly puffed up lips. “I’m going. Be good. Don’t be mean to your babysitter.”

Peyton watches him walk away and, when she stirs herself out of her little daydream (her _Nathan Scott’s ass_ fuelled daydream), she finds Haley laughing at her.

“Seriously, Haley James, you’re laughing at your ward for the day?” she scoffs jokingly. “That’s mean. He should’ve warned _you_ about behaving, not _me_.”

“I’m sorry, girly,” Haley grins, as she hoists her own backpack over her shoulder then picks up Peyton’s satchel, “but you two are just too …”

“It’s weird, right?” Peyton asks, her teeth worrying her bottom lip, as they start walking towards their first class. “I mean, I’m sure you’re wondering if the worst effect of my little bump on the head having any sense that I might have had left knocked out of it and deciding to get back together with him. Again.”

“Nope,” Haley says with a cute wrinkle of her nose. “I’m not wondering any such thing.”

“No? ‘Cos … you _know_ I’m an idiot? You don’t need to waste processing capacity on wondering?”

“Peyton,” Haley says, stopping when she realises there’s actually an underlying layer of real worry in Peyton’s voice. Not about Nathan. But about what Haley’s thinking. It’s … kind of nice, Haley thinks, that one of the most popular girls in school is concerned about what Haley thinks of her. “Peyton, you forget that I was with Nathan when he got the call from your Dad.”  
“I … oh. And?”

“I saw his face when he realised that _you’d_ been in an accident,” Haley explains. “I was there when he realised that it wasn’t your Dad looking for you because your Dad was hurt; it was your Dad looking for someone to be with _you_ ‘cos it was gonna’ take him time to get there, that it was _you_ that was hurt.”

“Oh. Was … was he …?”

“He was _beside_ himself,” Haley say with heartfelt emphasis. “And I’m not … breaking tutor-student privilege or anything, either, by the way. I’m only saying this because I know I’m not telling tales on him. I know he’s told you that it made him realise how strongly he feels about you.”

“Yeah,” Peyton smiles shyly, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Yeah, he said that.”

“I have never in my life seen the colour drain out a face like that, and let’s face it, Nathan Scott is not exactly the most tanned individual on earth to begin with.”  
“True. He does have alabaster skin,” Peyton smiles again, a warm glow to her voice,

“Hmm,” Haley grins, nudging her friend gently in the side, “girly likes her man’s skin, huh?”

“Well,” the blonds shrugs with a coy look, “that, and the hot bod it covers.”

“Yeah,” Haley sighs.

“Hey!” the taller girl exclaims in what is clearly mock alarm. “Do I need to be worried about my man getting all ‘hot for teacher’ on me?”

“No,” Haley laughs. “But, maybe you should worry a little bit about teacher being hot for your man,” she teases back.

“What!? Bi-atch!” Peyton gasps, still playacting.

“Seriously,” Haley says, then pauses. “Actually, I have two points to make here. Firstly, please don’t ever quote Van Halen lyrics at me again, even if it’s unintentional, because you really have way too much music cred to be doing that. And secondly, even if I was, and I hasten to add that I am _not_ , but even if I _was_ hot for your man, I wouldn’t have a hope. As of now, he is officially a one-woman guy.”

“That would be a change,” Peyton mutters in another moment of uncertainty.  
“Yes,” Haley says firmly, “it would, and that’s what I was getting to. That phone call … man, he … that was the biggest wakeup call that boy’s ever gonna get, you know? He … it literally made him sick.”  
“Literally? Aren’t you using that …”  
“No. I mean it _literally._ He had to leg it to the bathroom. Poor boy puked ‘til he was dry-retching.”

“Ladies, are you joining us anytime today?”

They both look up to see their English teacher in the doorway, one hand on her hip, the other tapping her watch.

“Sorry,” Peyton grimaces.

“It’s nice to see you back, Miss Sawyer. I’m glad you’re okay.”  
“Little bent out of shape, but yeah,” Payton says. “I’m basically okay.”  
“Would it be too much to hope for that you’ve used the time you were laid up being, no doubt, bored out of your mind to get caught up on your reading for my class?”

“Actually,” Peyton says, eyes wide and hand on her heart, “it would _not_ be too much to ask, Ms Greyson.”  
“Really?”

“Really. And, if you’ll give my trusty and loyal underling here a moment to sit down and dig through my bag, I even have the assignment that’s due today ready for you.”

“Good Lord,” the older woman hams, “I’m _shook_ , Miss Sawyer, _shook_ , I tell you.”

“Great book,” Peyton shrugs. “I really liked it.”  
“Good, I’m glad to hear it; it’s one of my favourites. Maybe you’d like some recommendations for further reading?”

“Oh, come on,” Peyton says with a cheeky grin, “let’s not push the boat out too far, Ms Greyson.”

“Ah well, you win some, you lose some,” their teacher laughs. “Take a seat, ladies. Let’s get to it, everyone.”

Brooke isn’t in the first two afternoon classes that Peyton shares with Haley, but she is in the blonde’s last one for the day, as is Nathan. Haley teases Peyton gently as they head towards the room, where they’d agreed to meet the younger Scott.

“Looking forward to seeing your _man_ again, girly?” she sing-songs. “You’d better make the most of the next hour with him, ‘cos he’s _all mine_ for two hours right after school.”

“Huh! You’re funny, James. Not.”

“I’m freaking hilarious, thank you, missy,” Haley retorts. “Oh, but won’t you need him for a lift home?”

“I … yeah … I don’t want to hang around your tutor session,” she says, her mouth twisting a little. “I guess I can wait in the library?”

“Yeah, you are _not_ hanging around our session; you’ll disrupt us.”  
“No, I wouldn’t!” she protests strongly. “I know how important this is for him, Haley. I’m so grateful for what you’re doing with him and his grades, that you gave him a chance. I always knew he wasn’t stupid, but he just … he needed the right input, you know?”

“Yeah, I know, and I didn’t mean to suggest you’d deliberately disrupt us,” the tutor assures her. "I know you wouldn’t. I know you want what’s best for him. I just … he can’t focus when the love of his life is right there, you know?”

“Oh, I … I think that might be a bit …”

Of an overstatement? Premature? Ridiculous? Far-fetched? _Wishful thinking? A dream come true?_

“You think?” Haley asks pointedly.

“Yeah … we … there’s still some stuff we need to work through.”

“Like what?” Haley asks curiously then blushes and backtracks. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Peyton, that’s awfully forward of me.”  
“No, it’s okay …”

They arrive at their class and turn into it, to see Brooke already seated, and watching the doorway almost anxiously. She looks at the two new arrivals with wide eyes, and opens her mouth as if to greet them, then closes it as Peyton turns sharply on her heel to head to the front of the classroom, taking the seat that is furthest away from her former best friend. Thank goodness they don’t have assigned seats in this class. She’s not ready to talk to Brooke. Not yet. Frankly, she’s not sure if she will be for a long while to come.

Haley looks between the two, then shrugs and follows Peyton.

“You can sit with her if you want,” Peyton says quietly. “I really don’t mind. It’s not your issue.”  
“Pfffitttt, we’re not close,” Haley says dismissively. “I mean, you don’t diss the poncho then get into the James inner circle.”  
Peyton looks at her and is about to ask _what the hell does that even mean_ , when Haley continues. “And, _anyways,_ what _is_ the issue?” Haley whispers. “This doesn’t seem like it’s about you just being peeved about her and Lucas, ‘cos I mean, you’ve got Nathan back, and I know you’re not a grudge-carrier.”

Peyton sighs and goes to speak, then stops. Does she want to go into this? She doesn’t usually talk about the deeply personal things with anyone but Nathan … and Brooke. But trusting Brooke feels like something that may never happen again. Trusting new people is hard for her; she trusted Lucas for, like, ten minutes and let the guard down, and look what happened there. But then she remembers something Nathan had said.

“Actually,” she says, “you can comment on this.”  
“Me?” Haley asks, looking nervous. “You know I’m not really in a position to comment on … relationship stuff, right?”

“Nathan said that _you_ said that _Brooke_ said something about her having done this shit before … like, deliberately? Going after someone I was interested in, then making out to me that she didn’t know and …”  
“Appeasing you with gifts?” Haley supplies knowingly, and with an awkward little grimace that tells Peyton everything she needs to know about the veracity of what Nathan had relayed to her.

“Yeah. So … it’s true? She did say that?”

“I … I’m sorry, Peyton. Yeah, she did say that.”

“Nail in the coffin,” Peyton mutters. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, here lies a decade long friendship, killed by betrayal and lies, all in the name of a quick fuck.”

“You … won’t forgive her?” Haley asks quietly, stunned more by Peyton’s apparent resolve than by the expletive.

“Unlikely,” Peyton shrugs. “Not on top of …”

“Of?”

“Let’s just say that’s one of the biggest things Nathan and I have to work through,” Peyton admits, quite aware that there’s something about Haley James that makes it easier to reveal parts of herself than it usually is for her. “I mean, we are though. We are working through it, ‘cos he … fronted up. And I do respect the courage that took.”  
“I don’t think I … ooooh,” Haley gasps as she realises what Peyton’s saying. “He …? With Brooke?”

“We were broken up,” Peyton winces.

“Even so …”

“Yeah.”

“I … I can see why you’d be so pissed at her over the Lucas thing, then.”  
“You know what?” Peyton says. “I’m really not; not over that, not now. That was just … a short, sharp shock to the system, you know? Then I realised I didn’t _really_ care and that I’d made a mistake thinking that there was anything there with Lucas. I … I know he’s your best friend Haley, and I don’t mean to … it’s just that he’s _so_ different to Nathan, and I guess … I think I’ve realised that I was recoiling from everything and looking for something – _someone_ – different, someone that I knew didn’t have the power that Nathan has. Someone that, even though on the face if it we seemed … compatible … could _never_ have that power.”  
“The … power?” Haley asks, genuinely uncertain of what Peyton means.

“Only the people you love can hurt you, right?” Peyton says with a wry smile. “No one else matters; they do stupid stuff and it’s like a pin prick – it’s annoying and it smarts and maybe it even bleeds a little, but it’s over real fast then you forget it even happened. But someone you _love_? They have this _power_ … even if they don’t mean to use it, they can just sucker punch you, without even knowing they’re doing it sometimes. It can be _devastating.”_

“Who’s devastating?” Nathan swings into the seat behind her and drops his backpack. “Me? My stunning good looks? My hot bod?”  
“The one covered by skin?” Haley quips, making Peyton splutter as she recalls the alabaster conversation from earlier in the day.

“Um … yes?” Nathan replies, looking seriously confused, glancing between the two laughing girls.

Haley gets control first and, just as their teacher walks in, recalls they have a logistical matter to resolve.

“Hey, what are we doing after this class?” she asks the couple. “We have tutoring, Nathan, but you’re Peyton’s ride home.”

“Yeah, I know,” he says with a shrug, “Ol’ lame duck here’s gonna be tired after her first day back; too tired to hang around for hours. And she’s supposed to rest a lot so I figured you could come with us to Peyt’s place and we can study downstairs while she has a nap? I can give you a lift home later then go back to keep her company tonight.”

“Oh,” Haley says, looking at Peyton with a shrug.

“Why didn’t we think of that?” Peyton laughs.

“Guess it just took a _man_ ,” Nathan lobs at them, eyebrows raised in a provocative way.

Peyton and Haley look at each other and, as if one person, roll their eyes.

“A _man_ ,” Peyton repeats, deepening her voice and flexing her good arm.

“A man,” Haley echoes in a whisper as their teacher addresses the class, “a man with _skin_.”

“What the ...?” Nathan mutters as he looks between them; laughing hysterically again, both trying desperately to get their hilarity under control.

Haley shushes him and points to the teacher and sits, back ramrod straight, eyes wide and attentive. He frowns, looks between them again, then sighs and turns his own attention to the teacher. Moments later, Haley leans sideways, her eyes still focussed on the front of the classroom, elbows Peyton gently and murmurs _skiiiiiiin_ , making Peyton erupt into loud giggles.


	12. "we have nothing to worry about. Absolutely nothing.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s when he’s driving back to Peyton’s after dropping Haley off, that Nathan runs into his father. Almost literally. He said he’d get dinner for them, and – using the ‘our bodies are our temples, babe, and you know we both want to worship at damn fine temples’ argument - made her agree to pasta, meat sauce and salad from the Italian place instead of the usual pizza. He’s just placed his order and ventured outside onto the boardwalk to wait for it, when a hand lands heavily on his shoulder. He jumps and recognises the mocking tone of the laugh even before he turns around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long chapter. Racy stuff. Language, but you've probably figured out by now that Nathan swears a fair bit in this story.

It’s when he’s driving back to Peyton’s after dropping Haley off, that Nathan runs into his father. Almost literally. He said he’d get dinner for them, and – using the _‘our bodies are our temples, babe, and you know we both want to worship at damn fine temples’_ argument - made her agree to pasta, meat sauce and salad from the Italian place instead of the usual pizza. He’s just placed his order and ventured outside onto the boardwalk to wait for it, when a hand lands heavily on his shoulder. He jumps and recognises the mocking tone of the laugh even before he turns around.

“Dad,” he says as he’s turning around, already on high alert.

“You’ve been a bit MIA lately, son.”

“And?”

“Don’t get too lippy with me, Nathan,” Dan Scott warns, his hand already raised to accompany his words.  
“Dad, I have school,” Nathan begins in a bored tone, “I have tutoring. I’m helping Peyton out until her Dad gets back. I have practice.”  
“I note that basketball is last on that list,” Dan says, just this side of aggressively.

“It’s just a list.”  
“It should be first; on the list, in your head, in your priorities. Basketball should be first.”

“You know there won’t be any basketball if I don’t maintain my grades, right?” Nathan scoffs.

“They’re good enough,” Dan spits out. “You got them up; _goooooo_ _Nathan_!” he says with a jazz hands gesture to emphasis his sarcastic tone. “Now ditch the extra study sessions and re-focus on basketball.”

“I have to keep them up, _Dan_ ,” Nathan retorts in just the same tone, incredibly hurt that his father, who he knows was both book lover and ballplayer, seems to have no respect for the academic efforts his son is making. “Things have changed since you were in high school. A scholarship for basketball isn’t gonna happen if I don’t have decent grades as well.”

“Fine,” Dan concedes, less than graciously. “Then drop your little hot potato girlfriend and use that wasted time to work out and run drills.”

“She was in a car accident, you dick!” Nathan protests, highly indignant at both the derogatory remark about his girl and the suggestion that time spent with her is wasted. “She could’ve been killed!”

“Coulda woulda shoulda,” Dan mocks. “She wasn’t. She’s got what? A sore wrist? A headache.”  
“A _broken_ wrist,” Nathan corrects his father. “ _And_ a torn-up shoulder. _And_ a mild concussion.”  
“Mild being the operative word.”

“Jesus, Dad. Look, her Dad will be back in a couple of days. I’m just helping out ‘til then. Her car’s a wreck and even if it wasn’t, she can’t drive for a few weeks.”

“And this is your problem, why?” Dan questions, leaning in to add emphasis. “Why don’t you let … Lucas be the virtuous hero here; he seems particularly suited to it. And let’s face it, he’s more than a little obsessed with the little …”  
“Because she’s _my_ girlfriend,” Nathan cuts in, not wanting to know what charming descriptor his father was about to use for Peyton next.  
“Really?”  
“You called her that yourself! Along with the ‘hot potato’, which I do not appreciate, by the way, you fucking perv.”

“You _were_ broken up.”

“And now we’re not.”  
“Oh, for what?” Dan scoffs with a mocking tone. “The hundredth time?”

“For the _last_ time,” Nathan says with conviction. “That shit’s all in the past.”

“Oh, isn’t young love … or should I say _lust_ … sweet?” Dan whines with a saccharine tone. “Well, I guess the Sawyer girl is …”

“Don’t you even say words like lust in the same sentence as her name,” Nathan demands, stepping into Dan’s space. “You’re sick. In fact, you know what? Don’t even say her name at all.”

“How noble you are, son. However, this doesn’t solve our problem, does it?”

“What problem do we have?” Nathan says derisively. “Other than the fact that you’re being a gigantic dick?”

“ _We_ have a problem because _I_ am not happy with your commitment levels.”  
“I’m _very_ committed to her, thank you,” Nathan fires back, deliberately and knowingly misinterpreting Dan’s words.

“To _basketball_.”

“Christ, that again?”

“ _That again?_ Nathan, this is your future,” Dan insists, poking his finger into his son’s chest. “This is your career.” Poke. “This is how you are going to make a living.” Poke. “And get out of this crappy little town.” Poke. “And make something of yourself.” Poke. Stab. Stab.

“That’s not it though, is it?” Nathan challenges, completely unphased by the jabbing into his pec.  
“What?”  
“This is about _you_. This is about you living … living vicariously through me.”  
“Vicariously?” Dan repeats with an arched eyebrow. “Big word, son. That tutor’s doing well with you. Hmmm … now, there’s another sexy little …”  
“Shut up! Shut the fuck up! Jesus, do you hear yourself? Do you know how fucking creepy you sound right now? You’re turning into a dirty old man, _Dan_.”

“I told you not to get lippy with me,” Dan says menacingly, stepping right into Nathan’s space and nudging him against the wall. But something’s changed in his son, and he doesn’t back down like he used to.

“Or what?” Nathan responds, pushing his chest out and into his father’s. “You gonna get into it here, old man? In public? You think you can shove me up against a wall and I’ll back down and give in and do what you tell me too, like I always have? Not gonna happen this time, _Dad.”_

“No?” Dan asks sceptically, confidently.

“No,” Nathan responds with complete assurance. “I _will_ keep my grades up. I _will_ have Haley’s help with that. I will _not_ drop Peyton just ‘cos you tell me to. Or maybe that’s not it, huh? Maybe you want these gorgeous women out of my life ‘cos you can’t rely on yourself to control your smutty little mind around them? Or _maybe_ they remind you that you’re a has-been? On the court _and_ off it?”

Dan’s height and frame seemingly diminish as Nathan’s rant goes on, as the younger man has driven the heel of his hand into Dan’s chest a few times while speaking. Now Dan stares back at him for several long moments, and his attempt to rally is palpable then, just when Nathan thinks he’s really going to cop it, it’s almost as if the wind goes out of Dan’s sails completely and he suddenly seems smaller in every sense.

“Or … maybe …” Dan says quietly, almost gently, “maybe I just want to spend time with my son.”

“What?”

“I … I’m losing you, Nathan.”  
“No, you’ve _already_ lost me. Because you’ve been a dick to Mom, and to me. And let’s not even talk about your _other_ son.”

Christ, Nathan thinks, where the hell did that come from? Defending Lucas?  
“Nathan …”

“Look, I get that you’ve pinned your hopes on me, and when I was little that was kind of nice; something we had in common, right? But I put myself under enough pressure now. I don’t need you piling on as well. It’s you and your insane expectations that made me take that shit ahead of the Cove City game. How is developing an upper problem gonna help me get a basketball scholarship, huh?”

He can feel himself getting worked up; too worked up. He just … he really understands how close he came to ruining everything with those damned pills.

“Nathan, look, just … calm down. I … fine,” Dan says, deflating even further, and taking a conciliatory tone. “Be a … a well-rounded … whatever … just … I’m heading away for the weekend. Golf. I thought … you’d come with me.”

“Is that an instruction or an invitation?” Nathan asks, not even sure what he would prefer; either way he’s not going. No way in hell.

“It’s an invitation.”  
“Then, thanks, but no thanks.”

“Why?”

“I have two assignments due Monday. I have an exam coming up next week. I want to spend time with Peyton. I have a game Friday night, and we’re putting a weekend practice into the schedule from now on, so there’s that, too. And …”

“And we’re back full circle,” Dan says drily, “basketball is last on your list again.”  
“I was _going_ to say I’m gonna run drills on Sunday morning. I was _thinking_ about asking you if you wanted to … but you know what? Fuck it.”

He snorts as he hears his order being called.

“Timing’s brilliant; that’s my food,” Nathan says chirpily. “My dinner, that I am going to take to Peyton’s place and enjoy, in her company, and then I’m going to spend the night with her so she isn’t lonely, and then tomorrow I’m going to help her get ready for school, and drive her to school, and along with the _other_ sexy chick in my life, Haley, I’m gonna help my hot, gorgeous, _beautiful_ girlfriend, to get through the day. With her broken wrist and her mild concussion and her crappy shoulder. And I don’t give a fuck what you think about that. So no, don’t join me for drills. Go play golf, Dad. Have a _splendid_ weekend.”  
  


He knows he’s being kind of quiet as they eat their pasta and salad, seated side by side in front of the TV. And he knows she’s noticed; she’s trying so hard to pull him out of his head, but he’s just so … _angry_ about the altercation. About being ambushed. About the sick way his father spoke about Peyton, and Haley. About the physical intimidation. Angry … and resigned, he supposes. And that makes him sorrowful. Which makes him angry all over again. Dan Scott doesn’t _deserve_ for Nathan to be sad over their crappy relationship. So yeah, angry and sad, and he doesn’t want to drag her into it, knows he kind of is anyway by being only minimally responsive to her gentle attempts at conversation.

He just eats, looks straight ahead, makes the odd one worded response or comment, eventually stands and goes to take her plate from her and can’t really avoid meeting her gaze at that point because she holds onto the plate, won’t release it until he looks at her. Her face is upturned, and her green eyes are concerned, worried … even a little teary.

“Nathan …”

“Peyt, just … just leave it …”

She swallows and releases the plate and he turns to walk to the kitchen when her quiet words stop him.

“You promised to be honest if it happened again,” she whispers.

He pulls up and spins on his heel. She’s not looking at him anymore. Her head is lowered, and he can’t help but be stunned by the graceful swoop of her neck. And that she’s wearing one of his practice jerseys. He hadn’t even noticed; that’s how tangled up his head is. And she always looks incredible, but when she’s wearing his clothes? Fuck, it just breaks him. And those tiny little stretchy short things, which he can barely see because his jersey is long on her. She’s not short, not by any means, but his shirts skim her thighs and … of course that makes him look at her legs.

There’s a reason why his pathetic brother ogles those legs. (Yes, of course, he’d noticed the blond Scott’s eyes following her legs; through the school hallways, on the side of the basketball court, when she’s slouched at a desk with those pins stretched out, crossed at the ankle; long and lean and tanned and showstopping. He’d noticed; he’s not an idiot.) They’re phenomenal; the first thing Nathan noticed about her too. And maybe for other guys, the next thing they’d see is her ass and hips; slim but still a little curvy, and with the most awesome swagger ever. Or, maybe they’d notice her blonde curls next. Or her green eyes. Or maybe her slim waist.

But the next thing _he’d_ noticed, before he spent weeks (months) screwing up the courage to ask her out, was her laugh; it had fallen over him like refreshing rain. Light. Tingling. Musical. And yeah, his tutor would pull him up for mixed metaphors, he’s aware, but at least he understands what metaphors are now. And her laugh was worth so much more than any simile he could come up with. She wasn’t laughing now. In fact, she was wiping a couple of drops off those thighs. Tears. She’s clearly suspecting the worst; another approach from another stupid girl, one he didn’t turn down as easily.

 _“Fuck,”_ he mutters, wishing he had a free hand so he could take hers, or squeeze her shoulder reassuringly. “Babe, I’m sorry. Nothing happened.”

She merely looks up, eyes glassy but a little hopeful, and waits.

“I just … yeah, I _did_ get ambushed,” he explains, “but it was Dan, not some random girl.”

“What did that psycho say to you?” she bristles, instantly swinging from expecting the worst _from_ him, to expecting the worst _for_ him.

“I … shit. Let me deal with the plates, huh?” he asks.

“Can … can you get me a glass of water while you’re in there?” she asks quietly.

“Sure.”

When he comes back in, she’s shaking a couple of tablets out of a pill bottle and he looks more closely at her. It wasn’t just worry; she’s also in pain. And for the last half hour she’s been completely focused on trying to cajole him out of his funk.

He swaps the glass of water for the pills, recaps the bottle and places it on the coffee table, then sits next to it, resting his palms lightly on her legs, just above her knees.

“So?” she prompts. “Dan?”

“You take those painkillers first,” he counters.

“Nate …”  
“No. You’ve been sitting there, trying to get me out of my foul mood, and the whole time you were hurting.”  
“The directions say to take them after food,” she points out.  
“Well, you’ve had food. Now take them.”

She sticks her tongue out at him and he watches while she swallows the pills.

“Satisfied?” she says sarcastically. “Now … what did your dick of a father do?”

He fills her in, the pushing against the wall, the bitching about Nathan’s priorities, the gross way Dan had talked about both Peyton and Haley, the way his father had suggested he should walk away from her, even the mention of Lucas’ heroic tendencies (that made her fake a gagging movement, he was pleased to note), the aggression and intimidation then the backing down and, finally, the weird and out of the blue invitation to go away for the weekend. He’s not traditionally a talker like this, but yeah, okay, maybe that _‘a trouble shared’_ thing has some merit. As he talks, he feels a bit better, a bit lighter and the weird thing is, she looks like she feels lighter too, as if knowing what’s in his head makes her own head easier to bear.

“You … could’ve gone, you know,” she says. “I mean, not that he deserves for you to join him on his golfing getaway, but if you wanted to try and repair … you don’t need to stay around and babysit me. My Dad will be back in another couple days, well before next weekend. You could go on his …”  
“Why would I want to spend time with that dick?” he asks, a little incredulous.

“You … you used to get on okay …”  
“Long time ago, now,” he reminds her. “Why would I go, just to have him spend the weekend sounding off about my shitty golf game, the same way he sounds off about my lack of dedication to basketball?”

“He _has_ been putting the pressure on,” she muses.

“Yeah. I … I told him it was his crazy pressure that pushed me over …”  
“The uppers?” she whispers. He merely shrugs.

“Do you …?” she begins before she tapers off, clearly unsure about whether she should give voice to her thoughts.

“Do I what?” he asks, his fingers stroking her skin gently to encourage her.

“Do you think, if you pull back from his crazy pressure, get some space between the two of you … do you think you won’t go there again? The … pills, I mean?”

“We already talked about this,” he reminds her, though he knows he really doesn’t need to.  
“But … we didn’t really resolve it.”  
“I promised I wouldn’t take them again,” he reminds her, but she looks … unconvinced.

“Peyton, I’m not touching that shit again,” he says with conviction. “Ever.”

“What if he …?”  
“I can stand up to him,” Nathan assures her. “I did tonight. He had me up against a wall and I pushed back.”  
“But that was in public!” she protests. “What if it’s not, what if it’s … in the locker room after a game, or … at home … what if he …?”

She frowns and bites her lip and looks really concerned when pointing out to him that his father has both a height and a weight advantage.

“Yeah,” he shrugs, “but often if he has a go, he’s been drinking, and that makes him slower. He’s taller, he’s got a longer reach, but I’m faster, and fitter, and,” he says with a nudge and a wink to her, “I have _way_ more stamina.”

“I don’t want you to have to use any of that against your father, Nathan,” she says quietly. “That’s not right. And you know what else isn’t right? You shouldn’t be talking so calmly about your father potentially laying into you like that.”

“Look,” he says, taking her good hand and entwining their fingers, “if it comes down to it, I can put up a helluva fight, but I’ll do everything I can do not be in that position, okay?”

“Promise?” she asks, eyes wide and searching and absolutely concerned for him.  
“Promise.”

“And … if he gets … like, if you have any worries about your safety, you have to tell someone.”  
“I don’t think he’d …”

“Does anyone, Nathan?” she interrupts, full of emotion. “Does anyone whose Dad pushes them round a bit think it’ll go further? Get worse?”  
“I guess not.”  
“So,” she says, gathering her voice, “if we have to get help …?”  
She says _we_ , and that makes it better right away. He thinks of Whitey first, somehow knows his coach would be there if he needed him. Despite their sometimes-fractious relationship, Nathan does know, deep down, that Coach Durham is a stand-up guy.

And suddenly, he’s thinking about another Scott brother; his Dad’s brother. Keith. His uncle. And yeah, of course he’s noticed that Lucas’ relationship with Keith, _their_ uncle, is so much more comfortable and positive and meaningful – ironically, so much more _paternal_ – than his own with Dan is. He knows that everyone in this town thinks Keith Scott is the ultimate stand-up guy. Everyone except Dan Scott.

He thinks, for the first time ever, that maybe he could get to know Keith better. And maybe, if he really needed help, Keith could be an option. He’d said Nathan could change it anytime. Maybe … maybe he could. If he needed to.

“Yeah,” he says. “If we need help.”  
“I guess, if the worst comes to worst, you can always emancipate yourself,” she says with a lopsided grin and a lilt to her voice.

“I don’t even know what that is,” he tells her, “but I do know that I don’t need my Dad in my ear to give it all my best, and I _absolutely_ know I don’t need to drug up anymore.”

“Promise?” she whispers, very aware that this is far from the first time she’s made that request.

He grins and leans forward, brushes his mouth over hers, stops and dwells there for a moment, moves his lips against hers, waits until she’s responding with a little more urgency then pulls back, earning himself a glare.

“Lotta promises you’re asking me for tonight, babe.”

She arches her eyebrow and stares at him. Hard.

“I promise,” he assures her, holding her gaze. “I don’t need that shit anymore.”  
“You never did.”  
“I don’t need it,” he repeats, then kisses her again, whisper soft. “Because _you’re_ my upper.”

She blushes and looks down, but he moves a hand to her cheek, uses his thumb to tip her chin up.

“I mean it,” he says firmly. “You’re all I need. Now … I’ve promised, several times, that I won’t take drugs again. Is this done now?”  
“No.”  
“But, what more can I …?”  
“It’s what _I_ need to do,” she interrupts him.

“I don’t understand.”

“I … wasn’t there for you.”

“I told you this too; it wasn’t your fault.”

“No, I mean … after … after the game, at the hospital … or even … I should’ve checked in with you to make sure you were really okay, and not taken Lucas’ word for it.”  
“What? What’s he got to do with it?”

“The first thing I said when I went to his house that night, was about you, about what happened, but I should’ve gone to you.”

“You know what?” Nathan says thoughtfully, “I’m kind of glad you didn’t.”  
“What? Why? Because we were ‘broken up’? I still …”  
“No. Because it got us to here.”

“So, I should be glad you took drugs to deal with pressure and you should be glad I was in a car accident?”

“Oh my God, you idiot!” he laughs. “No. That’s ridiculous. But, we’re here. And … can we just be glad that we are? Here?”  
“Together?” she says softly, almost dreamily.  
“Yeah.”  
“I think we can do that,” she grins.

“And can you please, please, _please_ believe that I am not gonna take that shit again and that you are all the … _stimulation,”_ he stops and grins wickedly, _“_ and … _pressure release,”_ he stops again and wiggles his eyebrows at her suggestively, “that I need?”

“Well … and basketball,” she teases.

“And basketball,” he agrees. “But I … I do have to … plan.”  
“Plan?”  
“That’s what’s so frustrating about my Dad telling me to put every bit of focus on one thing, you know? Basketball is a long shot …”  
“Nathan, no it’s _not!_ ” she exclaims, and the rarely heard Southern twang is there in her passionate words. He _loves_ that twang. “You’re gonna make it. I know you are.”

“And I love that you are my biggest cheerleader,” he says, “but it _is_ a long shot, Peyt. He doesn’t see that keeping my grades up gives me a _better_ shot at a college scholarship.”  
“Then he’s an idiot.”  
“He’s not an idiot,” Nathan disagrees. “He’s just … he failed, and he’s bitter and trying to fix his mistakes through me and …”

“See … you’re already smarter than your father!” she proclaims, almost victoriously and he laughs, and she turns her head a little to kiss the side of his thumb.

“Why do you keep saying it’s a long shot?” she asks, genuinely curious. “You’ve always been so sure; I’m gonna make it, I’m gonna be a Blue Devil, I’m gonna play in the NBA. Where’s the long shot thing coming from?”

“Maybe I’m getting wise?” he posits before he explains further. “There’s so many factors. I _do_ have to keep my grades up. I’m damned lucky that pill thing isn’t going on my record, but I can’t make that kind of stupid mistake again. It just shows … one stupid judgement call and it could all be over. I _could_ get injured if I fell badly. I mean … the better I get, the more I’m a target, too; I _could_ get injured by some dickhead deliberately taking me down on the court. Even if _do_ make it to Duke …”  
“You _will_ ,” she says emphatically, with a little nod that makes her curls bounce. “You will make it.”

“Even if I do,” he repeats, shaking his head at her faith, “it’s gonna be fucking hard work. Even if I’m lucky enough to start, I’ll have to deliver, or I’ll get dropped. The more I deliver, the more pressure there’ll be to keep delivering, especially when scouts start coming around. And then … maintaining grades at college? It’s not like I’m gonna have a Haley James around to keep me in line.”  
“Then you get another tutor.”

“Always an answer, Sawyer,” he teases.

“So … you’ll have to keep the grades up? Even at college?”  
“If I want a degree, yeah. And I mean, let’s say I’m a damned good college ball player,” he continues revealing his recent thought processes, “I’ve lost count of the dudes that have been awesome at school, awesome at college, then a bust in the NBA. I need something to fall back on. I need to …”  
And he realises, even as he’s speaking, that part of the underlying worry he’s been feeling is about _more_ than trying to keep on the straight and narrow when it comes to fooling around with other girls; it’s about being able to _look after_ the one girl he truly wants, the one girl he has, the one girl he now knows he’s determined to hang on to. Not just for the remainder of this Junior year at high school, but the next, and for college, and for after, and yeah, for the rest of their lives. And, for the first time ever, that thought doesn’t scare him. It thrills him. It motivates him. It ... _inspires him_ … to _do_ his best and to _be_ his best.

“You need to …?”

“I need to provide,” he says with a shrug.

“To _provide_?” she squawks, jabbing her fingertip into his pec. “What is this? Have we found a time machine and travelled back to the 50s?”

“I need to know that, whatever happens, I can look after you.”  
“I’m a big girl, Nathan, I can look after myself, present status notwithstanding,” she says waving her cast gently in front of him.

“But my career of choice, my _dream_ is such a long shot,” he insists.

“And mine isn’t?” she retorts.

“I …” he stops, realising that he’s never, _never once_ , asked her what she wants to do after high school. He’s always assumed she’ll just … be with him, at Duke, supporting him, cheering him on. “Tell me,” he entreats. “Tell me what your dream is.”

“I guess … music or art,” she says timidly. “Like … maybe being a scout for a cool indie label? Or … a music journo, maybe? Or … a gallery. Maybe?”

“They all sound awesome,” he grins. “You’d ace any of them; _all_ of them.”

“But creative industries,” she says, “they’re long shots, too. It’s competitive and … music is changing so much and … who knows where the industry is heading? And art is so personal and …”

“But you’re a scrapper,” he says. “You can do anything, Peyt. You’re so talented, and you work so hard and fight so hard for what you believe in. You just have to believe you’re gonna make it.”  
“Coming from!” she retorts, poking into his chest again. He grabs her fingers, wraps his hand around them.

“But,” she continues, holding a finger up, “you have to remember one thing.”  
“Yeah? What’s that?”  
“That we’re in this together.”

“And?”

“Well, law of averages or something,” she says with a nonchalant shrug, “ _one_ of us has to make it in these long shot careers, right?”

“Yeah,” he says, wrinkling his nose a bit, “but I’ll still love you if you end up in a dead-end job at a discount grocery store, wearing one of those weird apron things.”

“Thanks!” she snorts.

“I mean it.”

“And you think I won’t still love you if you don’t make it to the NBA?”

“Well, my own father won’t.”  
“That’s different.”

“How?”

“Firstly, because your father _is a dick_ and secondly, because I _choose_ to love you. _You_. And despite your bullshit and bluster, I don’t love you for your hot body or your gorgeous face or your crossover dribble or your dunk or your jump shot or the fact that you’ve put up better stats so far this season than anyone else in the State and better stats than your dick of a Dad did in _his_ Junior year of high …”

She is so incredibly sexy all the time, but when she’s hurling ball jargon at him and when she reveals that, despite her reluctant cheerleader facade, she not only knows his stats, but that she knows his father’s stats, that she’s been keeping track so that she can note when he surpasses them … fuck, that is _so_ freaking hot.

His large hand is at the back of her head in an instant and he’s drawing her to him, and his mouth is assaulting hers. He’s slotting their lips together and teasing her lips open with his tongue, mumbling against her skin at the same time. _Hot. Sexy. Gorgeous. Lucky. Want._

She’s as responsive as ever, and he loves, _loves_ the way she moans a little when he kisses her like this; strongly, urgently, possessively. And he _wants_ her so much.

He pulls back and hauls his t-shirt off, tossing it to the side and she gasps. But, he quickly registers, it’s not a good gasp. She’s cradling her injured wrist with her good hand and he realises he knocked it, hard, as he was pulling his t-shirt off. She’s biting her bottom lip, again not in a good way, and her eyes have welled up.

“Shit,” he mutters. “Jesus, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she says, resting her wrist on her thigh and placing her other hand on his. “Nathan, it’s fine. It was an accident.”

“Painkillers not kicking in yet?” he asks, stroking his palm down her leg.

“Not really,” she says, with a wince that he knows she’s trying valiantly, but unsuccessfully, to hide. “Another ten minutes or so, I think.”

He strokes her hair with his hand, gently pushes her curls behind her ear.

“I’m so sorry,” he repeats.

“Stop it,” she tells him off. “You want to make it up to me, pick up where you just left off!”

“I don’t want to …”

“You won’t hurt me. Did you hurt me the other night?”

He stops in his tracks and she grins when it’s clear he’s remembering; his eyes have glazed over a little and they’ve deepened several shades of blue, and there’s a warm glow on his skin. Then a look of almost … is that fear? … flashes over his face. He tries to catch it but it’s too strong.

“Hey,” she murmurs, “what was that?”

“Nothing,” he mumbles, looking down like a young schoolboy caught with his hand in the cookie jar.  
“Nathan,” she warns. “Honesty. Remember? You just looked … you looked freaked out.”

“I _am_ freaked out!” he says sharply, almost harshly.

“Why? It was just a little bump.”  
“No … not about … I …”  
“What, you big girl!?”

“Jesus,” he mutters, dragging his hand over his mouth, “you _will_ think I’m being a big girl.”

“What is it?”  
“I … the other night? That was …”  
“Awesome?” she laughs.

“I … it was more than awesome,” he breathes. “It was … that was the best sex I’ve ever had in my life.”  
“And you’ve had a _lot_ ,” she teases, bright eyes shining. “Hmmm,” she muses, resting her fingertip at her chin, “now I’m not sure whether I should be pissed or flattered.”

“No, I just … seriously, babe, you are _always_ hot. You are always _so_ sexy. It’s never mattered if we’re being … romantic or … or slow or … or hot and heavy or … pissed as fuck at each other. Sex with us has always been amazing, but the other night was … it was out of this freaking world. Mindblowing.”

“And?”  
“What if … what if I’m … not …?”  
“What!?”  
“What if I’m not that _good_ again?” he asks with a gorgeously honest look of concern.

“Ohmigod, you idiot!” she laughs. “That wasn’t about _skill,_ Nathan!”

He just looks at her, head tilted to one side a little and the little frown between his eyebrows is kind of adorable. She reaches out and smooths the crease away with the pad of her thumb.

“Baby, that wasn’t about skill,” she repeats. “That was about emotion.”

He looks at her and waits, knows she’ll have the perfect way of explaining it to him.

“Deep emotion,” she explains. “Relief and … and both of us finally being in the same space, the same _heart_ space, at the same time and … “  
“Gratitude,” he says, with a sudden bolt of understanding.

“Yeah, maybe.”  
“And a different … level?”

“Yeah,” she nods, “definitely.”

“I love you,” he states, openly and simply.

“I love you, too.”

“I’m still not risking bumping your wrist again, though,” he says with the beginnings of a wicked glimmer in his eye.

“But …”

“You’re in pain.”

“You said I’m your upper?” she says teasingly, her eyes shining. “Well, maybe you’re my painkiller.”

“Oh yeah? Because I flood your sexy ass with endorphins?”

She rolls her eyes but she’s smiling and goes to speak again but …   
“Nope,” he says, placing his thumb over her lips. He picks up a couple of cushions and gently raises her injured arm by placing his hand carefully under her elbow. He inserts the cushions and fluffs them a little, judiciously placing her arm onto them and making sure it’s cradled and still.

“What are you …?”  
He leans forward from his spot on the coffee table, places a kiss on the skin above her knee, still watching her, and with that light in his eye gleaming a little more.

“Nathan?”

He angles his body and places an identical kiss above the other knee, moves his hands to rest his palms above where he’s just placed kisses, his thumbs stroking up the inside of her thighs.

“Hmmm?” he teases, all innocence, as he keeps his eyes on her, moves to dot several open-mouthed kisses up her thigh, then across to repeat on the other leg.

“What are you …?”

“Endorphins, babe,” he chuckles, as if it’s obvious.

He drops his gaze then, applies a little pressure with his thumbs and spreads her thighs apart a little more. Continues his trail of kisses, a few on this leg, then moving to place a few counterparts to match on the other.

Stops for a moment and breathes against her skin, creating a few goose bumps, then more kisses trailing up the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, open-mouthed kisses, warm and just slightly moist as he intersperses the kisses with tiny flicks of his tongue, the occasional nip with his teeth.

His progress is painfully, excruciatingly, teasingly slow, moving just a few millimetres with each series of kisses. Eventually he’s at full stretch and needs to move, stands, smiles as the absence of his mouth on her skin makes her sigh, pushes back the coffee table to make room and kneels in front of the sofa, between her mile-long legs.

His hands find their way back to where they were, apply more pressure, spread her wider, and, as the slim fingers of her usable hand thread their way into his hair, he noses against the thin fabric of those tiny stretchy shorts. She sighs again, low and husky, and he can’t help but pull back to look up at her.

Her green eyes are deep pools of … well, lust, actually … and he _loves_ that. But there’s a question there, too. He waits.

“I … thought you didn’t really like …?” she asks, thinking of the many times he’d avoided this, kissed her _everywhere else_ , then moved determinedly onto plunging into her.

“No, I do,” he interrupts her, his thumbs dragging spiralling circles up her leg until they hit the fabric of those shorts.

“So … all those times when you …?”

“I was a selfish idiot who just liked getting myself off inside you more than I liked getting you off while I got hornier and harder and ...”

“I … I don’t …”

“Like you said,” he murmurs, his fingertips edging under the fabric at the hem of those shorts, “it’s … a different level now. Deeper. More … connected. The other night … I mean, sure I was good,” he teases, “and you’re _always_ good, but … I think you’re right; what made it so amazing was being in that same, deep space together. What made it so amazing for _me_ , was seeing how amazing it was for _you_ … you said I was _there_ with you. That’s what made it so intense, right?”  
“I … yeah. I think so.”

“So … I’m here with you. Right now. You’re in pain and I’m not going to risk hurting your wrist again. But I am gonna get you off. I want to take you there again and I want to see you like that again.”  
“But you …”  
“It doesn’t matter if I don’t … I want to take _you_ there. Okay?”

“O … okay.”

He grins at her, closes his eyes when her fingers dig into his scalp a little, then slips his fingers further into those little shorts, begins a long, long, sustained assault of lips, tongue and teeth on the soft skin of her thighs, while his fingers stroke and circle and tease and delve.

She’s vaguely aware that she gasps as his fingers gets perilously, promisingly close to plunging inside her, then withdraw again, and he chuckles a little at her frustrated intake of air. It does make him move again though, move to lift her hips and draw down those teeny little shorts, to reposition his hands, so that his palms are inside her thighs, right at the top, so that his fingertips reach up almost to below her hipbones. His thumbs delve to where she’s pulsing and damp, and spread her so that she moans, low and husky, as he blows across her exposed centre. He kisses her right between his thumbs and, finally, finally, plunges into her, not with his fingers but with his tongue.

She’s lost, really; as close as she’s ever been to an out of body experience, as he licks and sucks and tongues and blows and delves and his palms push against her to spread her even more and ohmigod, she’s so, so close. She’s aware enough to know that, if it wasn’t for his strength, her thighs would be clamped like a vise against his temples, but he pushes back against her and that tension between her legs and his hands seems to ramp her up even more as she pants and issues ohmigod after ohmigod after ohmigod from between her lips.

She realises she’s wrapped her one good hand around the back of his head, and is pressing his talented tongue and lips even closer to her, when a groan rumbles from his chest. She eases off but he instantly moves one hand back, grabs her hand and presses it back against his head, presses her hand into his head to encourage the return of that pressure, then, after he feels her hand press into his skull again, returns his hand to her thigh and flattens his tongue against her, a divine blend of pressure and movement that sends a jolt through her lower spine.

She trembles and he kisses and licks and edges the tips of his thumbs closer, closer, then pushes them into her, just, uses them to spread her open a little and licks again, up and over, up and over, teasing her with the tip of his tongue, pushing and pressing and circling.

He takes one long, last, firm lick over her, then slides two fingers into her warmth, strokes and pumps and simultaneously presses his tongue back into the nub above her entrance and teases it, kisses then gently sucks while he presses his fingertips into that secret, internal spot and she’s gone; flying and gasping and, God help her, _giggling_ as Nathan Scott does, indeed, flood her with endorphins.

He brings her down slowly, with kisses and gentle touches and long, swooping strokes until her breathing is even, then he rests a moment, his fingertips circling and caressing her hipbones, his head on her thigh, eyes closed, breathing hard.

“What are you thinking?” she eventually asks, fingers stroking through his hair, watching his eyelids flutter a little as he breathes.

“That your hip bones are fucking sexy,” he says as he strokes his fingertips over them.

“Oh really?”  
“ _So_ sexy,” he murmurs. “It kills me when you wear a bikini, or those low-cut jeans.”  
“It _kills_ you?”  
“Like I should write _mine_ on them with a sharpie or something,” he chuckles. “Warn off all those other boys that flirt with you all the time.”

“Like … branding me?” she says in mock horror.

He laughs and moves his hands, slips them behind her and rubs his fingertips in the small of her back, dips them teasingly into the crease just below, then tickles across her lower back.

“Maybe here?” he teases. “Tramp stamp.”

“What!?”  
“My jersey number,” he says with a snort, “23 above your sexy ass.”

“Can’t,” she says firmly.

“I know. I was joking.”

“I mean,” she says thoughtfully, well aware that she’s probably about to make his eyes glaze over with a possessive rush, “what if your jersey number changes?”

“What!?” he exclaims, his head lurching up and eyes flying open. Yeah, he’s more than keen on where she’s going with this. “What are you …?”

“Hips makes more sense,” she says, still stroking his scalp with her fingertips.

“Peyton! What are you …?”  
She moves her hand and strokes her fingertips across her left hip bone, drawing his lustful gaze. She etches a certain two-digit number with her nail; it momentarily stays there, pink against her lightly tanned skin, making him swear under his breath and swallow hard.

“23 _here_ … as a little celebratory ritual when you win the State champs in Senior year and get into Duke,” she says in a tantalisingly breathy tone. “And _then_ , when you get your first NBA jersey,” she adds, moving her hand to draw over the other hipbone, “another number here.”

“Are you …?”

“One on each hip? One for the start of your post high school basketball career and one at the pinnacle of it.”

“Are you serious?” he asks, both incredulous and incredibly turned on.

“Maybe,” she teases. “What do you think?”  
“I think that’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.”  
“Yeah?”

“Fuck that’s … _really_ hot.”

“You’d better win State next year then, hadn’t you?”

“What about this year?”

“This year?” she repeats with a raised eyebrow. “This year’s a given.”

“A given?” he repeats, looking slightly shocked.

“I’m not minimising the hard work, Nate, I just know you can do it and that you will do it. And by _you_ , I mean the team. You’re the best, that’s a given too. But the Ravens are a _team,_ and …”

“I know, I know,” he interrupts rolling his eyes. “I need to let the _second-best player_ on the team …”  
“Yeah. You do.”

“I will.”  
“Yeah?”  
“Just as long as you don’t ever get a freaking number 3 tattooed …”

“Ohmigod,” she mutters, wrapping her good arm around his neck. “Shut up and help me get upstairs.”

“Dammit,” she mutters when she realises her moisturiser is in the bathroom. Nathan’s in the shower, and … what the hell, it’s not like she hasn’t seen him in the shower before, or even been in the shower with him before … and _been with him_ in the shower before. So, she barges on in.

“Sorry, need moisturiser,” she chirps as she races in, grabs the bottle then turns to be struck motionless.

He’s standing, feet widely spaced, in the bath, under the shower, and the not quite completely transparent (but damn close to it) shower curtain isn’t enough to obstruct the view. His left hand is on the shower wall, just above shoulder height, almost next to the shower rose, and she can’t help but notice his knuckles are white and taut, as his fingertips press into the tile hard. Her gaze follows the majestic line though his left shoulder, across the top of his back to where his right shoulder dips and his arm moves, his bicep tightening and relaxing and …

“Oh …” she gasps.

“Shit … sorry.”

“Sorry,” she emits at the same time.

“You … no … it’s your bathroom … I … oh God, this is like some terrible porno,” he mutters. “Hot girl walks into her own bathroom to find horny teenage boyfriend jerking off in her shower.”

“I … art …” she murmurs, spellbound at his physique, gleaming with water, musculature highlighted. Jesus, how is he only seventeen?

“A terrible porno is art?” he chuckles, turning a little, glancing back over his shoulder, twisting that phenomenal body just enough to reveal the object of his … activity. She can’t help but follow the line of his right arm, and hand, to where he’s still holding himself, his thumb lazily – almost absentmindedly – swiping over the tip of his aroused flesh.

“I … my art class,” she says, dragging her eyes away, _forcing_ herself to drag them away. “We were looking at Renaissance sculptures … you … your body is art. Like … carved in … marble … or … _alabaster_ ,” she adds, biting her lip as she recalls her conversation with Haley.

“I … you ... I’ll get out and get dressed,” he says, though his hand hasn’t moved, and his thumb still swipes lazily and God, the look in his eyes as he meets her gaze, is pure molten desire.

“Or … don’t?” she suggests, her voice dropping a tone.

“Don’t get out?” he asks in a gravelly voice.

“Don’t ... stop?”

She slowly pushes the clear shower curtain all the way back, removing even that minimal obstruction to her ability to view.

“As much as I love shower sex with you, babe, you cannot get in here with that cast on your wrist.”

She moves her good hand to put her finger over his lips for a moment, tells him to hush, then places her hand on his hip, applying a gentle pressure to turn him around ninety degrees. She pats his ass as a teasing _well done_ , then reaches up to take his hand and place it on the longer wall, then steps smoothly to the end of the bath and sits on the toilet lid, turning her glazed gaze back to him.

“What?” he asks, a little disbelieving.

“Art direction,” she shrugs.

“You want to …?”  
She waits, watches his hand take a couple of long, slow, lazy strokes, his thumb slide over the tip again.

“Babe?” he murmurs, his voice deep and gravelly again. “You want to watch?”

“Is that too weird?”

“It’s not weird,” he says adamantly, “it’s … hot.”

“Yeah,” she grins, raising her eyebrows, “you are.”

He preens under her compliment and she can’t help but giggle at his vanity.

“That terrible porno just got seriously good,” he mutters.

“I dunno,” she teases, “the lead actor’s not playing to the audience much.”

“I _was_ thinking about you, you know,” he says, looking intensely at her.

“You better have been!”

She looks at his hand again, wrapped around himself, can’t help herself as she catches her bottom lip between her teeth, scrapes her fingers back through her loose hair. His gaze follows hers and he lazily watches his own hand take a couple slow strokes, looks back up to see her gaze grow even glassier, and he can’t help the moan that escapes his lips.

“Are you thinking about me now?” she asks provocatively.

“Uh-huh.”

“Are you … thinking about the other night?”

He nods slowly. “And … earlier tonight,” he adds. “Being between those mile-long legs of yours.”

He knows it will make her blush. That’s why he says it.

“Oh.”

Yep. There’s the pretty pink flush creeping over her cheekbones.

“And …”  
“And?”

“The first time.”

“Yours?” she asks, eyes meeting his almost reluctantly as it means she has to tear them away from that slow, rhythmical stroking of his hand.

“No … _ours_.”

“So … _mine_ , then?” she says with a slow, sexy smile, the reminder that he was the first. And, so far, the only. He really, _really_ wants to keep it that way.

“Yeah. You … you’re mine, Peyton. I can’t … can’t deal with you and anyone else.”

“Play your cards right and you won’t have to.”

“You mean that?”  
“Weeeeell …” she teases lightly, her gaze falling back to his hand. “All you have to do is be the best ball player in the State, the best-looking guy I know, the sexiest …”  
“Just that?”  
“And … you know, keep me satisfied.”

“That simple, huh? I just do all that … and you won’t look at anyone else?”

“I might _look_ ,” she says, teasing him a little, “but you’re the only one I want to … _watch_.”  
He groans, tipping his head back, and his left hand stretches taut against the shower tiles, tendons standing up, knuckles white as his right hand pumps and slides, twisting a little every few strokes.

He can feel her green eyes on him, the tip of her tongue dipping across her top lip, then back, dipping, then back. He resists turning to look at her, just basks in the way she watches, the way a little gasp comes from her lips each time his thumb swipes across his tip and slit.

He feels the zing start in his lower back, sending sparks up his spine, makes the next few strokes slower but firmer, holds momentarily longer and tighter at the base, just to take it back a notch, to feel the build just a few seconds longer. She exhales and there’s no way her breath could reach him from there, but he could swear it does; feels the air tingle along his ribcage.

Nathan broadens his stance, just a little, flattens his left palm against the wall and presses hard against the flat surface, tips his head to the side a little, looks at her around his shoulder. She’s entranced; no other way to describe it. He watches her as she observes his hand gather momentum again, and yeah, the slide and friction on his dick is amazing but feeling the weight of her gaze on him is so much more intense than any physical sensation. It’s magnifying everything, and he can’t take his eyes off her.

She’s gorgeous. She’s amazing and gorgeous and so incredibly sexy. It floors him that she can be bashful and shy in bed sometimes, then assured and confident (but never brassy or brazen). And then … this. Out of the blue, something spontaneous and fortuitous and … just a little dirty.

He’s close. Sure, he knows it, but he can tell looking at the sudden leap in anticipation on her face that she knows it too; she knows him, she’s _learnt_ him and his rhythm or he’s taught himself to her, or both. She tips her head for just a moment, meets his eyes and winks. Returns her focus to his flying hand.

“You’re fucking gorgeous,” she says, low and so so husky. “Now, I need you to come for me.”

The release is, he thinks, one of the most exquisite things he’s ever experienced.

Later, Nathan watches her as she sleeps, kicking himself for the feeling that creeps over him as he does so. Suddenly, from nowhere, he’s a little afraid of her apparent commitment to a shared future. She’s never expressed that before and he knows how hard that was for her. He’s always just ... assumed, and yet now he’s feeling twitchy about it. He calms himself with some deep breaths and tries to work this through in his head. It’s not her; he loves her, and he knows it. It’s not about going to the same college; he’s always just imagined her there, by his side, maybe not cheering ‘cos honestly? He cannot see Peyton Sawyer being a college ball cheerleader. But, the pictures of college, of Duke, that have been in his head for the last two years, have always included her, so that’s not what’s making his blood rush.

He's … flummoxed and concerned and finds himself moving from the bed, and her room and sitting just a couple of steps down the staircase, head in his hands, trying to work his way through the unwelcome thoughts in his head. He can do this. He can work this out.

He thinks about the last few days, the last few hours, finds himself dwelling on how she looked when she thought his moodiness was down to another approach from another girl, that maybe he’d strayed, or been tempted to. The way her face had tilted up, worried, sad but also hopeful. She wanted to believe in him. Was hoping against hope that she could.

And he realises slowly that his fear is about letting her down; he’s not afraid of college or college ball or leaving Tree Hill (bring it on!) but he’s afraid of extinguishing that flame of hope in her face. And that realisation floods him with relief because he _can_ control that. She’s never going to condemn him for failing at academics or his ball aspirations, as long as he gives it his all. And condemning him for failing at being 100% hers? Not gonna happen because _that_ , he knows, is entirely within his power; _that_ he can control.

She wakes and realises he’s gone and can’t help the worry, the mild panic. Nathan isn’t usually a restless sleeper, doesn’t usually get up through the night at all. And just as her mind begins to take her down the rabbit hole of what could be wrong (too much drama, too much worry, too much pressure, too much talk about the future, too much _Dan Scott_ ), the bed dips, and he’s back, slipping under the covers as carefully as he can before he spots her open eyes.

“Go back to sleep, babe,” he murmurs.

“You never wake during the night,” she whispers. “I was worried.”

He wraps his arms around her, ever mindful of her left side, and presses his lips to her temple.

“Go back to sleep,” he repeats. “You … _we_ … have nothing to worry about. Absolutely nothing.”


	13. "Maybe this'll work out okay."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s been a long time since Larry Sawyer spent an unbroken three weeks at home. Would his daughter go so far as to say she’s glad she had a car accident because it means she got her Dad back for three weeks? No, of course not, but she really loves having him there for more than a forty-eight hour stretch.  
> It’s the little things.   
> When she walks into the kitchen in the morning, the coffee’s already on, and two mugs are lined up ready, and her Dad’s sitting at the kitchen table with the newspaper flat in front of him and the first person she sees each day is smiling at her like she’s responsible for all the good in the world, like she lights up their world.

It’s been a long time since Larry Sawyer spent an unbroken three weeks at home. Would his daughter go so far as to say she’s glad she had a car accident because it means she got her Dad back for three weeks? No, of course not, but she really _loves_ having him there for more than a forty-eight hour stretch.

It’s the little things.

When she walks into the kitchen in the morning, the coffee’s already on, and two mugs are lined up ready, and her Dad’s sitting at the kitchen table with the newspaper flat in front of him and the first person she sees each day is smiling at her like she’s responsible for all the good in the world, like she lights up their world.

The fridge is full, and yes, it’s healthy food, but there’s also a stash of her favourite treats from when she was little. Her Dad remembers.

She doesn’t do any laundry for three weeks, and yet piles of clean, fresh smelling and neatly folded clothing keep appearing on her bed as if by magic.

Larry takes over school drop off and pick up duties from Nathan. She knocks her satchel over on the way home the first day and, as he’s helping her gather up the contents of her bag, Larry comments on the English text she’s reading and others by the same author and, whoa, she had no idea her Dad was so well read. She says just that, and her Dad laughs, commenting about the long hours at sea with not a lot to do, but that he’s always loved to read, since well before he was her age even. She realises, instantly, that she’s not seen that side of him because he’s sacrificed long hours of reading to be with her when he’s home.

The conversations the duo have after that are wide ranging and robust and full of good-natured arguments, leaving them both with a healthy admiration for the other’s ability to argue a point to the end, passionately but without rancour.

Haley gets in on the act one afternoon when it’s pouring down, and Peyton offers her a lift, via Larry, to Karen’s for her shift. Larry chivalrously escorts Haley in with his large umbrella and then returns to the car for Peyton, saying coffee and cake in a cosy café sounds like a great way to spend the next hour or so. The café is incredibly quiet, and the three of them - Larry, Peyton, Haley – end up spending the afternoon and early evening tucked up in armchairs fighting passionately over their top ten authors of all-time lists. When the Sawyers finally leave, too full of cake to even consider dinner, Peyton spontaneously invites Haley for dinner at the weekend, promising the tutor, when she looks sceptical, that she won’t have to eat Peyton’s cooking.

On Larry’s first weekend home, the Saturday night becomes the first of several dinners for four, because when he hears about the initial invitation to Haley, Nathan pouts ridiculously until he earns an invitation for himself. Larry cooks each time, with the trio of teenagers watching from the nearby kitchen table as he works his way through some of Anna’s old recipes, starting with Peyton’s favourites. Haley turns up with dessert each time, sometimes just a tub of ice cream, sometimes a cake or pie from Karen’s Café, sometimes cookies she makes herself.

Nathan turns up to the first one with a six pack of Larry’s favourite beer and a bottle of red wine, looking a bit nervous, partly because he’s brought alcohol and he’s underage, partly because he knows nothing about wine. He hands the bottle to Peyton’s Dad and says he hopes it’s okay and mentions, with a grin, that he had his Mom come with him to buy it, so he hasn’t brought illegal contraband into the house. Larry comments that it’s a nice red and he chose well, and Nathan admits that he asked the advice of the assistant at the wine shop; he’s really not in the know on this stuff. Surprising the hell out of Peyton, that turns into a warm and genuine conversation between her father and her boyfriend about wine. Larry gives Nathan a few helpful pointers about what to look for in a red, then laughs and says, with a raised eyebrow, that naturally he’s not advising Nathan to buy alcohol.

Peyton pushes Nathan to put the time he had been spending as her ‘chauffeur and companion’ into his basketball drills and training and that gets Dan off his back a little, and even earns him a few appreciative nods from Coach Durham.

Larry and Peyton go to all of the Ravens’ games. She can’t cheer, her wrist still being in plaster, and her shoulder some weeks off full use, but they sit in the stands and she holds one of her pompoms in her right hand. Peyton coerces a reticent Haley into holding the other pompon in her left hand, and, after a fair bit of encouragement, Haley loosens up and the pair leap to their feet with ridiculously enthusiastic shouts and cheers and pompom manoeuvres every time Nathan has a starring moment; they seem to be on their feet rather a lot.

Haley finds herself on her feet alone at one point, yahooing for a clever Lucas Scott steal followed by an easy layup after he runs the length of the court practically alone. Peyton looks at her sideways, the patented Sawyer _oh really?_ arched eyebrow. Haley pokes out her tongue, elbows Peyton’s side and tells her she needs to let bygones be bygones. The eyebrow arches further.

“You’re happy, Peyton,” Haley says, leaning sideways and speaking quietly, not taking her eyes off the court. “You’re happy and you’re my friend now, but Lucas is my friend too. He’s working his ass off to fit in on the team, and you _know_ he’s good. I know you want the Ravens to go to the finals this year, and next, and I know deep down that you know Lucas can be a big part of that. I know it’s Nathan’s dream, but it’s Lucas’ dream too; for all the right reasons. I really, _really_ enjoy your company and it would really, _really_ mean a lot to me if you, as my friend, could support my other friend.”

“Even if he was a bit of a …?”  
“Numbskull?” Haley suggests.

“That.”  
“Yes, Peyton, even if he _was_ and even when he _is_ a bit of numbskull.”

“I’ll …”  
“For me?” Haley pleads, with a saccharine smile and fluttering her eyelashes. “I mean … I’m tutoring _your_ numbskull for hours every week. All I’m asking for is a little pompom waving for mine.”

“You _do_ get _paid_ to spend time with my numbskull,” Peyton points out, but she’s smiling benignly and Haley thinks she might have made some progress.

Next time Haley leaps to her feet for Lucas, Peyton waves her pompom a little and rolls her eyes, and Haley mutters that she had no idea until right this moment that a pompom could be shaken sarcastically, but Peyton’s just proven it’s not just possible but a reality.

Peyton laughs and moments later, watches with her mouth open as Haley’s numbskull Scott powers across the court and seemingly flies into a miraculous intercept, bolts down the court then, when he looks for Ravens’ support and finds none, barrels towards the key, spins away from a defender, fakes a pass back out that throws the second defender off balance, notices his own feet are inside the key, spins again and steps out past the line, turns back and floats up a perfect three pointer. He stands, his arm raised, and his hand flipped over in that slightly odd style he has, and the crowd watches as the ball arcs high, peaks, slows, descends and, finally, drops neatly through the hoop.

Most of the Ravens, led by the quiet but effective defender Jake Jagielski, swarm Lucas from the court and the bench, as the third quarter end buzzer sounds. Peyton’s on her feet yelling at the top of her voice with the rest of the crowd; numbskull or not, that was a stunning break. They’ve just been on a twelve-point streak and they’re now sixteen up with a quarter to go. Lucas was absolutely critical in the third quarter; everyone in the gym knows it.

Nathan, Tim and one or two others hang back from the congratulatory melee. Peyton grins widely at Haley, at her Dad, then turns to see Nathan picking up a towel from his bag at the side of the court, wiping his forehead and looking up into the crowd, his eyes on her. She can see the tension he’s feeling; he’s still not entirely able to welcome Lucas into his life. He’s trying, and she knows that, but it’s difficult, conflicting and downright confusing for him. He looks at her with uncertain eyes, and she smiles as warmly as she can (because those flashes of vulnerability are rare in Nathan and, when they come, nearly break her in two), brings her fingers to her lips, blows him a kiss and winks.

His shoulders relax immediately, and he grins back. She tilts her head, nods it towards Lucas. Nathan looks at her, with a tiny, questioning frown. She nods again, first towards Lucas, then at Nathan. He wipes his face again, then nods his understanding at her, takes the few steps towards the team and, throwing his towel around his neck, places his hand on his brother’s shoulder. Lucas turns and regards Nathan with his trademark squinty look. Nathan shrugs at him, holds his fist up and waits. It takes a few seconds, and, in the excruciating wait, Peyton grabs Haley’s hand and points and they hold their collective breath. Lucas stretches the moment out; probably no one could blame him, but he eventually brings his fist up and bumps Nathan’s.

“And by the way, HBJ,” Peyton says, leaning towards her friend, “we’re not just going to finals; we’re winning.”

Haley merely smiles sweetly and leans back to respond.

“You think?”

“If we can get our two numbskulls working together, yeah,” Peyton grins.

“You coming round then, PES?” Haley teases.  
“I know Nathan is the best player we have, but he can’t do it on his own. I do know that. I’ll make sure he knows that too. I mean, he does … but it’s hard for him. He’s … getting there I think.”

Later that night, after the Ravens only stretch their lead through the last quarter, Larry waits with Peyton until Nathan appears from the showers. She’s excited about the strong win, which puts the Ravens at the top of the league, but also extremely tired and not at all sure she’s up to going to the team party that she’d told Nathan earlier she would attend. She wants to check in with him, find out how peeved he’d be if she didn’t go after all. Maybe, if he really wants her at his side, she could go for just an hour and grab a cab home. There’s also the small matter of the party being at Brooke’s house.

If he’s surprised to see Larry waiting with her, he doesn’t show it; just greets them both, then kisses her on the cheek. He pauses when he pulls back and runs the pad of his thumb along her cheek bone.

“You’re tired,” he says, “aren’t you? You want to give the party a miss?”

“I … that kind of depends,” she says a little cautiously, though she’s relieved he’s brought it up rather than having to do it herself.

“On what?” he chuckles. “You’re still recovering. If you’re not up to it, we’ll just go back to your place and hang out for a little bit.”

He looks at her, then at Larry and shrugs.

“Unless you guys would rather I don’t come?” he adds. “If you want some quiet?”

Larry shakes his head and grips Nathan’s shoulder.

“I do think Chicken here should give the party a miss,” he says, “though she’s determined to go if it’s important to you.”  
“Dad …” Peyton protests, blushing at Larry’s use of the nickname.

“But,” Larry continues, “you’re very welcome to join us. Either way, I want to commend you for the olive branch to Lucas. It was a small gesture but an important one. I know it’s not an easy thing, coming to terms with the situation that was created for you by other people, but it’s a _good_ thing; forging your own way. You know, Nathan? You’re becoming quite a fine young man.”

“I … I don’t …”  
Nathan looks completely flummoxed and quite uncomfortable. It’s a sad thing, Larry finds himself thinking, that his daughter’s fella is so unused to compliments about his character that he doesn’t know quite how to take them.

“And,” Larry says, wrapping his arm around Peyton and patting Nathan’s arm a couple of times, “that was a helluva game, kid. I really think this year’s the year we’re shooting for State.”

“Yeah?” Nathan asks, instantly standing taller. Compliments about his game and prospects? Those he can handle with ease.

“Yep,” Larry nods. “Then the pressure’ll be on next year, ‘cos you’ll be _defending_ State champs.”  
“Thanks for that,” Nathan says drily.

“So,” Larry says as they turn towards the carpark, “what’s it gonna be? Cheerleaders and a keg at Brooke Davis’ – don’t try and tell me there won’t be a keg, Nathan, I’m not a fool, in fact there’ll probably be tequila shots, too – or a movie and _one glass_ of something on the Sawyer’s couch?”

Nathan grins and reaches for Peyton’s hand.

“A movie, one glass of something and _my_ cheerleader,” he says. “And her Dad,” he then adds, making Larry laugh.

“I promise I’ll hit the sack right after the movie,” Larry comments. “Let you two lovebirds have the couch to yourselves.”  
“Dad!”

“Peyton, sweetheart,” Larry says with a wink to Nathan, “tell me one thing; would you rather be embarrassed by me making oblique but light-hearted references to you two sucking face, or making out, or whatever the hell you call it now, knowing that your Dad thinks your fella is a pretty decent guy and is more than happy to leave you alone with him? Or would you rather I tolerated him under sufferance and told you – often – that he isn’t good enough for you? Which, I think you’ll remember, is where we were at not too long ago?”

Nathan can barely hold the laughter in, and Peyton stands there, looking between the two of them, wondering how on earth it came to this. In the end, she rolls her eyes and mutters something about never having liked that stupid _would you rather_ game anyway, turns on her heel and walks towards her Dad’s car.

“I love you, honey,” Larry calls, laughing at her ramrod straight back and the way she flounces her curls. She did it in just the same way when she was a little girl and he peeved her off by telling her she had to go to bed, or she couldn’t have another ice cream.

She huffs and throws a look back over her shoulder at the pair of them, then can’t help but turn and look. They’re both standing, arms crossed in front of their chests, feet in a wide stance, heads tilted, watching her. They both have such warm and wonderful and loving looks on their faces that her heart _very nearly_ melts.

Nathan extends his fist and Larry bumps it and she rolls her eyes again.

“You’ll keep,” she says, pointing at Nathan in protest.

“Hey, babe?” he asks as the two men walk towards her.

“What?” she pouts.  
He grins and pushes her hair back behind her ear, presses his lips to her temple, then tilts his head towards Larry, who’s walking around the back of the car to the driver’s door.

“What he said.”

“What he said?” she repeats with a gorgeous little crinkly frown.  
“I love you,” he repeats in a whisper, “honey.”

Melting of heart commenced and completed.

Later that night, after Larry Sawyer heads upstairs, there’s only a little of the making out he’d referred to earlier. Nathan’s distracted, and Peyton can tell – can’t she always? – and she presses him into confiding in her.

He admits, with an enormous amount of hesitation, that he’s been thinking a lot about Keith.

“What about him?” she asks, her interest piqued.  
“He … I saw him when I went to look at the Comet.”  
“You went to look at the Comet?” she asks, surprise etched on her face.

“Yeah. I … just had to see it,” he says slowly. “I don’t really know why.”  
“My Dad’s getting Keith to patch her up.”  
“I know; I saw him – Keith – there, when I went to look at your car, and he … “ Nathan pauses for a moment before continuing, still hesitantly. “He kind of asked how things were with me, and sort of referenced the upper thing.”  
“He knows about that?”  
“I mean, I guess Lucas told him or something.”

“What did he say?”  
“He was … concerned, I think,” he replies thoughtfully. “Not judging me. Anyway, I was a bit standoffish, I think, told him he doesn’t know me.”

Peyton smiles wryly and he looks at her in question. She shrugs.

“I ... may have said something like that to another Scott not so long ago,” she says by way of explanation, then shrugs it away. “It’s not important. Anyway ... so what did he say to that?”  
“He said I can change that anytime I want to.”

“And … you think, maybe, you might want to?” she asks, realising that this is the reason why he’s been so meditative.

“I … maybe?” Nathan says somewhat earnestly. “I ... you know it’s weird how your Dad and I are getting on now, right?”  
“You mean how the two of you are ganging up on me all the time?” she teases.

“Yeah; awesome right?” he chuckles. “I just ... this thing with your Dad, it’s kind of made me realise that the way it is with me and my Dad? It’s … made me realise how _wrong_ that is. I mean … there’s Whitey, and how he stepped up for me after the upper thing. And your Dad actually noticed that I was seeing things differently and ... trying to be better. And the fact that he noticed and … I dunno … _commended_ me for it? It makes me want to be even better. And I thought, maybe …”  
“Maybe there could be Keith too?” she completes the sentence for him as he lets it taper away.

“Yeah.”

“So … what are you thinking? How?”  
“Well, maybe I could see if I can help him with your car?” Nathan suggests shyly, barely able to meet her gaze as he says it.

“Nathan!” she almost shrieks, sitting bolt upright.

“What? Is that dumb idea?”  
“No! That’s an _awesome_ idea!”

“Yeah?”  
“Yes! One hundred percent yes!” she says adamantly. “Tomorrow! You have to go talk to Keith tomorrow. I’ll come with you, if you want.”  
“I ... thanks,” he says. He’s genuine, but also sounds flat.  
“You want to go on your own, don’t you?” she laughs.

“Is that okay?” he asks hesitantly.  
“Of _course_ it’s okay. Will you tell me how it goes though?”  
“Absolutely. Hey ... thank you.”

“Welcome,” she grins, with a cute little shrug of one shoulder. “Hey Nate?”  
“Babe?”  
“Now that you’ve got that off your mind, can we go back to that making out we were doing?”

He sighs dramatically and rolls his eyes and sighs again.

“Weeeelll … you’re kind of demanding,” he wheedles with a lazy, teasing look in his eye as he leans forward and slowly, gently pushes her back into the cushions and teases his lips across _the_ spot below her ear, “but I suppose so.”

The conversation he has with Keith Scott the next morning goes really well, then takes a slightly unexpected turn.

Keith is under a car on a lowslung trolley when Nathan walks into the workshop, so the younger man just waits until his uncle slides out. Maybe he was expecting that Keith would be shocked and was hoping for the upper hand, but Keith looks very much as if he was expecting his brunette nephew to saunter in, as if he’d been doing it regularly, and merely stands and wipes his hands.

“Nathan.”

“Hi.”

There’s an awkward silence for a few seconds before Keith shakes his head with a smile and helps him out.

“What can I do for you?” he asks lightly. “You want to know about Peyton’s car?”

“Sort of.”  
“Well, it should arrive later today. I’ll be getting started on it on Monday. Should take me about three weeks. I did tell Larry Sawyer this.”

“Yeah, I know.”  
“So…?”

“Um … I … wondered if maybe you needed … if I could help? With the Comet?”  
“You need a job?” Keith asks. “You’d earn a damned sight more at Dan Scott Motors if you’re looking for …”  
“No,” Nathan interrupts. “I wasn’t looking to get paid.”  
“Well,” Keith chuckles, “I’m not imagining you’ve discovered a long-hidden desire to be a panel beater or a mechanic, so what’s up?”

“I … couple of things,” Nathan says, warming up a bit. “I’d like to do something for them, for Peyton and for Larry. He’s … he’s been kind of awesome to me lately and she’s …”

He stops and shrugs helplessly. How does he explain her? Them?  
“She’s your girl,” Keith says simply, with understanding. “You love her.”

“I … yeah.”  
“And the other thing?”

Nathan pauses but Keith just smiles reassuringly and waits.  
“I … you said ... the other day ... that I could change it. Us … you not knowing me. Me not knowing you.”

“You told your father about this?” Keith asks knowingly.  
“No.”  
“Going to?”  
“Not if I can help it,” Nathan grins.

“Okay,” Keith says. “I know you’re working around practice and I know you’ve got extra study commitments.”  
“You do?”  
“Haley James and Lucas have been like two peas in a pod since they were toddlers, Nathan, I know just about everything that goes on it that girl’s life.”  
“She’s awesome,” Nathan says genuinely. “She’s such an amazing tutor. Her and Peyton are getting really close, too.”

Keith’s eyebrow raises and he laughs.

“Okay, well, maybe I don’t know everything that’s going on in Haley’s life then. That’s ... interesting. Anyway … let’s just say you get here when you can and help out when you can. If there’s anything in particular you want to be there for, we can work with that.”  
“Okay. And, before you talk about paying me, I don’t want you to.”  
“You sure about that?”  
“Yeah. Hundred percent. I … I kinda don’t know a thing about cars. Or tools. I’ll probably be a liability more than a help.”

“Good to know,” Keith laughs. “And good negotiating too, dropping that crucial little piece of info in _after_ I’m committed. So … can I make a suggestion?”  
“It’s your workshop,” Nathan points out.

“Well, that is true. Listen, Lucas works for me whenever he can. I know it’s slow, but I know you’re trying to get past whatever … _spin_ your Dad’s put on all of this. I’d like it if you and Lucas _both_ helped me out on this.”  
“Why?”

“I guess I should take it as a win that that wasn’t a flat out no,” Keith says. “Well, Lucas _isn’t_ a liability with cars and tools. Plus, Nathan, you probably don’t need to hear this, but I miss my little brother. We used to be tight. I looked after that kid when we were younger. I … don’t know how it got to this, but I don’t think it’ll ever be fixed. And I don’t want my nephews to become adults and be in this position. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t give it a bloody good go to help you two sort this out.”

“Can I think about it?” Nathan asks after a few moments.  
“Sure.”

“I … I can’t make it Monday but Tuesday’s okay, after five. Is that too late?”  
“Let’s say five ‘til eight.”

Nathan nods and turns to walk out then stops and turns. Keith’s already halfway to the office.

“Keith?”

Keith just turns and waits, tucking the cloth back into his pocket.

“Thanks,” Nathan says with genuine feeling.  
“You’re welcome. This’ll be fun, Nathan. I promise.”  
“I … well, I guess we can’t let Lucas miss out on the fun, right?”

“Yeah?”  
“Yeah … but … can you …?”  
“I’ll talk to him. He …” Keith pauses and thinks for a moment, clearly making his mind up about whether he continues or not. “Luke may well like the idea of … making amends with Miss Sawyer himself.”

Nathan’s eyes narrow a little and Keith raises his hands in a _what can you do_ gesture.

“Well,” Nathan says drily, “maybe so. He was a jackass.”  
“Just as well for you though, right?” Keith chuckles.

“Not so sure I want you getting to know me better after all,” Nathan mutters.

“Hey,” Keith says with a shrug, “it’s what we do when we work on cars.”  
“What?”  
“Talk shit, talk girls, talk basketball.” He grins and winks. “Mainly girls.”

“Basketball?” Nathan repeats, clearly surprised. “You played?”

“Yes, Nathan, I played. I was never anywhere near as good as your father, but I never played to be the best at it, which is just as well, come to think of it.”  
“Why’d you play then?”  
“Because I freaking well loved it.”

Nathan tilts his head and grins.

“Maybe this’ll work out okay,” he says.

“Maybe it will. Now, get outta here. I’ll see you Tuesday.”


	14. “How did you know just what to say? Just how to help me?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I just got a phone call,” she says quietly when they both look at her and wait for her to speak. “Um, it’s the storm. My Dad’s transport is missing. There were three guys on it. They recovered a body.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter uses quite a lot of actual dialogue from the episode when Peyton has to go and ID what may be Larry's body. And Lucas takes her. Yeah, as much as I was a total Leyton shipper watching the series, and as much as I loved that episode, Lucas is not the hero in this story! Plus, there's more racy stuff because ... it's Peyton and Nathan, that's why. Chapter 15 is nearly done and chapter 16 is about three quarters of the way there, so counting down.

The day before Peyton gets the cast off her wrist, her Dad heads back out to sea. He’s exceedingly reluctant, to be fair, but having had the very good news at her last check that they’d take the cast off a week earlier than planned because everything looked so good, she was adamant that he should go. Her shoulder’s healing well too; they think she can go back to driving in about two weeks, and possibly to cheering another couple of weeks after that.

Neither of them will ever tell her, but before Larry heads out, Nathan takes him aside and squares his shoulders and looks his girlfriend’s Dad in the eye and tells him not to worry about their girl; that he’s got this, that he’s got _her_. Larry grins and shakes his head and mutters something about alternative universes and _who knew?_ and that a few months back he’d never have been able to predict this. Nathan shrugs modestly, then is stunned when Larry Sawyer hauls him into a manly hug.

“One day,” Larry says, his hands on Nathan’s shoulders, returning the direct gaze, “one day, you are going to come to me and ask me for Anna’s rings.”  
“I … but …”  
“Relax, kid,” Larry chuckles. “Who gets hitched at high school? _Or in their first couple of years of college_ , I might add,” he says with hard warning squeeze of the younger man’s shoulders. “One day … in the _very_ distant future, you are going to come to me and ask me for my Anna’s rings. I’m not saying there won’t be ups and downs or dramas between now and then. But I have confidence in you, and I have confidence in my kid. You two are gonna make it. And, just so you know, as long as I keep seeing you like this, when you ask me that question, I will give you those rings with my blessing.”

“I don’t know what to say.”  
“Say nothing, Nathan. Just keep looking after my kid.”

“I will. I promise.”  
“Good.”

It’s only been a week or so since Larry Sawyer went back out to sea. Nathan and Haley have books spread out over the Sawyer’s kitchen table, both having found they liked the clear light, warmth and quiet of the room. Peyton’s been keeping out of their way; doing some laundry (one of several reasons why she’s feeling the absence of her Dad), pulling together an art assignment portfolio, plying the studying duo with fresh coffee, regularly stopping to flex her wrist (now cast free), and her shoulder, now without dressings but with a scar that Nathan says is badass and that he can’t stop kissing whenever he sees it. When they take a break, she asks them to come outside with her, that she wants to show them something, and, a little shyly, opens the door of the beaten-up old garage and reveals a draped vehicle.

“Okay?” Haley asks. “It’s a car.”  
“It’s a Corvette,” Peyton says.  
“And?” Haley asks.

“It’s my Dad’s and … I kind of wanted to do something nice for him, a surprise for when he gets back.”

“Why?” the shorter girl asks, curious.

“He’s my Dad!”  
“No ... I mean, yes, of course, but why now?” Haley elaborates.  
“He … I know he’s using savings to get the Comet fixed up, because it was my Mom’s and now it’s mine and … I thought maybe if I cleaned up _his_ vintage car, he might spend a little money on himself, you know? On his own car - on the mechanics.”  
“So it doesn’t run?” Haley asks.

“No. I don’t think it’s anything major. Just needs a good service. But Dad just … when he’s here he doesn’t do stuff for himself.”  
“And you what?” Nathan finally chips in, having watched and listened. “Want us to help you clean her up?”  
“Yeah. If you want to. I mean, if you don’t it’s fine,” she adds earnestly. “But I just … I’m gonna do it anyway so you can pretty much count me out of anything for the rest of the weekend.”

“So,” says Nathan with a teasing lilt to his tone, “what you’re saying is that if I don’t help you, I don’t get to spend any time with you over the rest of the weekend?”

“Uh-huh,” she says with a cheeky grin.

“Right,” he says with a roll of his eyes that rivals her characteristic gesture, “fool-proof plan, huh?”

“Little bit, yeah,”

“You’re lucky I love you.”  
“Yeah, I know.”

Yeah, she knows he loves her and yeah, she knows she’s lucky that he does. Their shared almost tender smile makes it clear they both heard both meanings there.

“When’s your Dad due back?” Haley asks.

“Next week.”  
“You miss him, don’t you?” Nathan asks, pulling her in close and holding her side against his chest, wrapping his arms around her.

“I always do,” she sighs, “but after having him here for three weeks, this one feels especially tough.”  
“Of course we’ll help,” Haley says, “it’ll be fun. We have one more block to cover though, before I’m prepared to let Nathan out of _school_ ,” she adds with a laugh. “You want to make a start and we’ll be out in an hour?”

They make great headway, the three of them; by early-afternoon the Corvette is half done, its deep red colour coming up with a beautiful sheen.

When they stop for refreshments, Nathan flicks on the radio for the sports news, but catches the tail end of a weather report that immediately has Peyton tensing up. There’s a major storm circling the area of the Gulf where her Dad is.

They attack the car again, Nathan and Haley both working hard to draw Peyton out of her worried quiet. She’s trying to get out of her own head, they both can see it, but she’s becoming more and more anxious. Eventually Nathan takes the turtle wax and chamois from her hand and tells her to go back inside and get the latest weather update.  
  
“Okay I just checked online and now they’re saying it’s a category 3 hurricane,” Peyton says with an audible strain to her voice as she emerges from the back door, wringing her hands, to find the other two waiting for her at the steps.

“Alright,” Nathan says, stepping up to her and placing his hands on her upper arms, “and you already checked on the webcam right?”

“Yeah. It’s out.”

“Well, maybe he turned it off?” Haley suggests hopefully.

“Or the storm did it for him,” Peyton retorts darkly.

“Yeah, but storms knock that kind of thing out all the time, right?” Nathan says, trying to sound reassuring. “Anyway, aren’t dredging boats huge?”

“He wouldn’t be on the dredging boat,” she counters. “Right now, if there’s a storm headed his way, he’d be on this little tiny transport heading back to shore and that’s what worries me.”  
“Okay, Peyton, just stop,” Nathan says, recalling that Larry was on one of those transporters and out of contact for several hours while Peyton was in hospital, and understanding suddenly how helpless the man must have felt. He pulls her into his chest and rests his chin on her head. “Don’t do this to yourself, alright? Just because he hasn’t checked in doesn’t mean something’s happened.”

“Doesn’t mean it hasn’t either,” she says, wriggling out of his embrace and walking away, with her slender arms crossed over and wrapped tight around her waist.

“Babe …” he begins, but she cuts him off sharply.  
“Nathan, just give me some …”  
“Space. Yeah. Sure.”

“Yeah, I’ll come back out when I …” her voice trails away as she walks up the steps and into the house.

Haley looks to Nathan for guidance, thinking one of them, or maybe both of them, should follow the blonde in, but he tells her, with absolute certainty, that they need to give Peyton the time she’s asked for. Haley suggests they get stuck into polishing the car and he agrees; anything to take their minds off how pale and concerned Peyton looked.

The blonde returns half an hour later, looking even more agitated.

“I just got a phone call,” she says quietly when they both look at her and wait for her to speak. “Um, it’s the storm. My Dad’s transport is missing. There were three guys on it. They recovered a body.”

“What’d they tell you?” Nathan asks, dropping his polishing cloth and rushing to her.

“I have to go see if it’s him,” she says, nearly breaking down as she collapses and curls herself into Nathan’s arms.

He bundles her up, carries her inside, bridal style, feeling her whole body shaking against his chest all the while. Haley follows them in, immediately tells them she’s going to go upstairs and prepare an overnight bag for Peyton, and that Nathan should make her a hot, sweet tea, that she’s likely going into a mild shock.

“Alright you sure you shouldn’t call your Grandma?” Nathan asks when he puts the steaming mug in front of Peyton a few minutes later, just as Haley walks back into the room, Peyton’s bag in hand, mentioning that she threw some of Nathan’s clothes in too.

“No, she’d freak out,” Peyton answesr, shaking her head decisively. “I’d rather not upset her. Besides it’s not going to be my Dad.”

“Of course, it’s not,” Haley says in a reassuring, motherly tone.

The three of them are quiet while Peyton drinks the tea, Nathan holding her free hand firmly the whole time.

“Let’s go ahead and get this over with,” Peyton says, pushing the chair back and raising to her feet. “We have a four-hour drive ahead of us.”

“A four-hour drive into a storm?” Haley asks, frowning in concern.

“Well, the storm’s passing through,” the blonde deflects. “By the time we get there it should be gone.”  
“Okay, wait a second,” Nathan says, thinking about what’s likely to happen. “Shouldn’t somebody stay here by the phone? I mean in case your Dad calls.”  
“I will,” Haley volunteers immediately. “You go with Peyton, Nathan, you have your own car and … let’s be honest; she needs you.”

“You sure you’re okay to stay here?” Nathan asks.

“Yeah. Of course.”

Haley hands the bag to Peyton and hugs her hard.

“It’s going to be okay.”

“You’re the best one to do this, Nathan,” she says as she hugs him too, then pushes them both towards the front door. “I’ll call you guys if I hear anything.”

They’re barely down the street and around the corner before Haley’s pulling her phone out of her back pocket and calling her own backup, the one _she_ needs.

“Luke. Hey. You want to help me on _another_ Sawyer car project?”

“What are you talking about, Hales?” he chuckles.

He knows Haley thinks it’s amazing that he and Nathan are working on the Comet with Keith. Actually, he thinks it’s kind of amazing himself. (Not least because Nathan’s kind of hopeless with tools and, yeah, Lucas does quite like it that he’s better than Nathan at this manly activity.)  
“So … I spent some time this afternoon polishing Peyton’s Dad’s old car, with Nathan,” she explains, “and the last part of that was while Peyton was inside freaking out.”  
“Peyton was freaking out about you polishing a car with Nathan?” he asks, sounding somewhat bewildered.  
“No. Peyton was inside freaking out because her Dad is possibly missing. In that storm. It …”

“Haley,” he interrupts her. “I think you need to start again. At the beginning.”  
“Oh. Right. Peyton wanted to do something nice for her Dad, and he has an old car that isn’t looking so good right now. So, I was helping her and Nathan with cleaning up this car.”  
“Why did you help? I mean, apart from just being the nicest girl in the universe?”  
“Well, I kind of was invited to a few meals with them?” Haley admits with an inward cringe. “Peyton, and her Dad, and Nathan. While Mr Sawyer was back.”  
“Okay. That’s …”  
“I should have told you; I know.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say _should_ have,” Lucas says thoughtfully. “But why didn’t you?”

“I … I don’t know.”

Sure, she does. She thought Lucas would be jealous that she was forging such strong bonds with the girl he’d been in love with for years, and that girl’s family, and _his_ half-brother to boot. That, and Lucas had been kind of preoccupied with Brooke, and Haley just could not bring herself to like the brunette.

“Um … I’m telling you now?”

“Okay. So … you’re cleaning up the car …”  
“And Peyton got a call and it seems her Dad may be missing in that storm.”  
“God, that’s _awful_ ,” Lucas sympathises. “Is she …”  
“It gets worse; she got another call,” Haley interrupts. “She has to go and ID a body.”  
“Shit.”  
“I mean … hopefully it’s not her Dad. But still …”  
“Someone’s Dad, right?” Lucas says, understanding Haley’s state of mind, as he always does. “And not exactly a fun thing to do.”  
“Yeah.”

“So …?”  
“So, Nathan’s gone with her. Moral support and all. And I’m waiting at the house, at Peyton’s house, in case there’s a call.”

“And you could do with some moral support yourself?” he asks knowingly.  
“I really could, Lucas. I ... I’m sorry if you have plans with Brooke but I … I really need to play the best friend card right now.”  
“I _don’t_ have plans with Brooke,” he says firmly, giving Haley the distinct impression that … _dalliance_ … might be over. “And we’ll polish up an old car while we’re at it?”

“I ... yeah ... it feels a bit like an act of faith, you know?”  
“It you act like it’s not her Dad, it won’t be her Dad?”  
“Something like that.”

“Haley, of course, I’ll help you. You know I’ll always be there for you.”

“And … also … the car kind of isn’t running right now,” she says and he can detect the sheepish tone in her voice even over the phone.  
“You want me to bring my tools?” he asks, full out laughing now.  
“Please.”  
“So what am I dealing with here?” he asks. “How old is it really? I mean, if it’s more recent and all electronic and …”  
“No, it’s old,” she rushes out. “I mean, I saw under the hood and I know I don’t know what the hell I’m looking at but it’s not electronic, that’s for sure.”  
“So, I know car’s aren’t your thing Hales, but do you have _any_ idea what it is?”  
“Yes.”

“And?”  
“Are you ready for this?” she says, with a knowing tone of her own.  
“Haley …” he warns.  
“It’s a Corvette.”  
“I’m on the way.”

  
  


“You warm enough?” Nathan asks hours later as they near their destination. She’s been hellishly quiet for the last hour as they’ve gotten closer and closer, and her arms are now wrapped super tightly around her body.

“I’m okay.”  
“You want me to stop and get some coffee?”

“I’m fine, thanks,” she smiles weakly, then turns to look at him. “Thanks for doing this for me, Nate.”

“Hey,” he says gently, reaching to rub his palm up her arm, “anything for you. I mean, I wish we didn’t have to do this, but …”

“Yeah,” she says, momentarily reassured by his use of ‘we’ but then “… now what?” she asks with a humph as they see flashing lights and a barricade in front of the bridge they’re approaching. Nathan pulls over and they both get out into the cold dark, taking the few steps to the worker in hi vis gear.

“What’s going on?” Nathan asks.

“Bridge is up ‘cos of the storm,” the worker replies. “It’ll be open in the morning.”  
“Alright, we have an emergency,” Peyton says in her _don’t mess me with me_ voice. “We have to get across the bridge.”  
“I’m sorry, Miss, but it’s not safe.”

Yeah, this guy isn’t going to budge an inch. They can both see it. Arguing is absolutely pointless and will only get them wound up.

“Okay, um, is there another way through?” Nathan asks, hoping against hope that there is, while knowing exactly what the response is going to be.

“Only the ferries, but the channel’s too rough so they’re not running.”

“Well, what are we supposed to do?” Peyton pleads, with a discernible note of desperation.

“Hopefully they’ll be able to open the bridge in the morning. 6 am. There’s a motel right down the road,” he adds. “Might want to grab yourselves a room before they’re all gone.”

Nathan wraps his arm around her shoulder and steers her back to the waiting car. What else can they do?

The motel is pretty crappy, but beggars can’t be choosers, they know.

“Alright, let’s just try to get some sleep, then we’ll be at the bridge as soon as it opens up. What did he say? 6 am?” Peyton asks Nathan, verifying what she already knows.

“We’ll be there at 5,” he says, confused when she lets out a small laugh in response. “What?”

“We’re in a hurry to find out if my Dad’s dead,” she deadpans. “It’s just kind of surreal.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty messed up,” he admits, feeling completely off in his own body, now knowing where to put his limbs.

“You know how in dreams; you’re always trying to get to some place you need to be, but you never really get there?” she asks in a distant way.  
“Yeah,” he says, rubbing his hand up her arm a few times, knowing it doesn’t really help but feeling like he needs to touch her, needs to anchor her.  
“I wish I could wake up.”

“Maybe we should try to get some sleep,” he suggests quietly. “You think you can?”

She nods but he has his doubts. All he can do right now is pull her into his arms and wrap himself around her and hold her tight.

“Look, babe,” he says near her ear, his hands locking together at her waist, “I just wish there was something I could do, or say, to help you through this.”  
“You already have,” she says softly, resting her own hands atop his. “Thanks, baby.”  
And they lay there, both with eyes wide open for what seems like hours.

“Hey, you,” he murmurs much, much later, as he realises that she’s fidgeting with something near her hand.

“Hey.”

“What you got?” he asks peering over her shoulder. “I haven’t seen that bracelet before.”

“ _‘To my heart, love Dad’_ ,” she reads off with a voice that’s almost, but not quite, teary. “He gave it to me on my last birthday.” She turns in his arms and focuses her worried eyes on him. “What if it’s him, Nate?”  
“It’s not gonna be.”

He wishes he was as convinced as he sounds.  
“’Cos I don’t know what I’d do.”

“It’s going to be okay,” he says, this time with more certainty, because he’s going to do _everything_ he possibly can to make it so. “It’s not going to be him but … you know you’re not in this alone, right?”

“I know,” she nods. “I just keep trying to picture walking into that room and seeing him lying there. But I hit a wall. Why does it seem like every time things are finally going to be okay, something terrible happens?”

“You don’t know that it has,” he reminds her. “Keep him close to your heart, Peyton. Get some sleep, okay?”

She does sleep a little; fitfully, it’s true, but a little rest is achieved.

He sneaks out as carefully and as quietly as he can, in search of something to eat and drink, when he detects the beginnings of a weak morning light though the opaque curtains.

“What’s all this?” she asks blearily as he comes back into the room.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I wasn’t asleep,” she says as she moves to sit up and tries to tidy her mussed up hair.

“I hit the vending machines,” he says, dumping a handful of crinkly packets on the bed. “Hungry? You should probably eat something.”

She smiles weakly and rummages through the packaging to find something that’s slightly less unappealing than everything else.

“After my mom died, my Dad couldn’t cook,” she says out of nowhere. “So, we lived on frozen pizzas for the longest time. I could live on pizza. He’d buy these cheese pizzas, and then put his own toppings on. Pickles, bologna, pineapple, whatever.”

“Gross,” Nathan chuckles, pulling a slightly disgusted face.

“No. Actually, they were really good,” she argues lightly, with a soft nostalgic smile. “I think he did it mostly just to make me laugh. You know it would help me forget for a little bit.”

There are a few minutes silence as they each manage to swallow down a rather unappetising selection of vending machine snacks.

“You ready?” he asks her after he spots that she’s stopped eating and is just sitting, still, waiting.

“No,” she says firmly. “Not even a little bit.” But she stands and shakes out the tension in her limbs, then steels herself. “Let’s go.”

They’re first in the queue and the bridge is opened just a minute after 6am. That minute takes forever, yet then in no time at all, it seems, they’re walking into the coroner’s office and presenting ID and being briefed as to what they’re going to be asked to do.

When they’re standing outside the room where Peyton needs to view the body, it all, suddenly, catches up with Nathan, and he steps back, his body rigid, his face drawn, and his breathing laboured.

“Nate?” she asks, feeling his withdrawal and turning to see him backing up against the wall, his knees looking decidedly wobbly. He can’t answer her, and she steps right up to him, taking his hands in hers.  
“What’s going on?” she asks, her voice full of concern.

He’s pale and slightly clammy and swallows hard before he can respond.

“I … I don’t know if I can go in there,” he whispers, voice full of regret, remorse, self-recrimination.

“Seriously?” she asks sharply, unable to keep the fear (and maybe a little anger) out of her tone.

“Just … give me a minute,” he says, trying to pull himself together. Shit, he really doesn’t want to let her down.

“What _is_ it?” she says, pressing a hand to his glistening forehead. “Are you sick?”

“No. I … I’m just freaking out a bit. I … when I was about seven my Mom’s grandfather died, there was an open casket at the service … Dan … he made me go up to it.”  
“Really? Fuck, he’s a _monster_ ,” she mutters.

“He … on top of that, he jumped out at me and freaked me out and, shit, I’m sorry; I’m supposed to be helping …”  
“Nathan!” she reprimands. “You were just a little kid. It’s _okay.”_

Someone clears their throat behind them, and she turns to see an older man, in the archetypal white coat, waiting for her.

“Miss Sawyer?”

“Yeah. I ... I’m coming.”

She turns back to Nathan and presses a quick kiss to his temple.

“Just wait here,” she says kindly. “I’ll be fine. Be back in a bit.”

She takes a few steps and, as she approaches the door to the room beyond, which the attendant opens, Peyton speaks.

“Can you just tell me really quick what the room’s like?” she asks. “Just ... so I know what I’m walking into?”  
“Of course,” he says patiently. He closes the door again and gives her a brief but clear description of the room, tells her that he will not pull back the cover until she indicates she is ready. That he need only uncover the face, nothing else. And he wants to assure her that the man under the cover looks well and there are no visible marks or anything else that will cause her undue distress.

“Except that it might be my Dad,” she whispers.

“Well, yes,” he admits gently. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she says weakly. “Alright, let’s do this.”  
He opens the door again and gestures for her to go through, but just as she’s about to do so, a large, warm, basketball-calloused hand slips into hers. Nathan Scott walks through the door with her, at her side, holding her hand firmly in his own.

She takes several long, deep breaths as she stands beside the gurney. She can’t nod when she’s ready, but she squeezes Nathan’s hand and he nods for her. They both hold their breath as the attendant nods in return then gently, reverently, pulls back the cover.

“It’s not him,” she says quietly and calmly before turning into Nathan’s chest, her shoulders shuddering in relief.

They’re given a moment while the cover is replaced and then they’re gently ushered from the room and left alone in the hallway outside, told to make their way to the front desk when they’re ready, that it’s absolutely fine to take a few minutes to clear their heads.

“You did good,” Nathan says, smoothing his hands down her hair, kissing her forehead, pulling her close and holding her tight.

“I felt like my chest was going to explode,” she admits.

“You ready to head out?”  
“God yes! Get me out of this place.”

He takes a moment to call Haley before he starts the car, and his tutor tells him she was literally about to call him.

“Well, it’s good news,” he replies.

“I know,” Haley responds quickly. “I just got off the phone with the coast guard. They made contact with his boat; he’s fine.”  
He turns to Peyton and grabs her hand. That’s even better news than theirs.  
“They found your Dad,” he tells her with a massive grin. “He’s okay.”

Peyton literally leaps across the car to him and they embrace, relief palpable in the car.

“Alright, we’re headed home,” Nathan says to Haley. “We’ll see you in a few hours. Or … I mean, you don’t need to stay.”  
“No, I will,” Haley says. “I might be Goldilocks and steal Peyton’s bed for a sleep, but I’ll be here.”

“Oh my God, that’s … wait,” Peyton says, her initial relief rapidly replaced with panic as he’s ending the call.

“What?”

“My bracelet,” she says, her fingers gripping her wrist desperately, “I must have left it in the motel.”

“Alright, let’s go,” he says determinedly, turning the key and throwing his car into gear.

She’s beside herself by the time they get to the motel, all of the pent-up anxiety and fear of the last twelve hours, or more, coming to the surface as she races into what was their room.

“It has to be in here,” she yells as she hauls blankets off the bed and scrabbles about, pushing her fingers down the side of the mattress and under the pillows, growing evermore frantic.

She stops just as suddenly as she started and just sits, frozen in position, hunched over her hands.

“Got it?” Nathan asks, alarmed when, though she nods that she has the bracelet, her shoulders start heaving and she sobs and sobs.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says, rushing to her and hauling her into his arms. “Everything’s okay now, okay?”

She looks up at him and God, he hates it when she cries, but she is so incredibly, fragilely, heart-wrenchingly beautiful right now, her eyes a deep, deep green and swimming with tears.

He hauls her back into his arms, partly because he needs to hold her close and partly because he almost can’t bear to look at her tears, and her eyes, and her lips. But she pulls away after a bit and he looks at her and she sighs and then she’s kissing him, her entire body full of relief and gratitude and weariness and … what can he do but kiss her back? She’s fragile but so, so strong. She’s crying ugly tears but she’s simultaneously the most beautiful he’s ever seen her.

He pauses for a moment, wondering if what he thinks they’re about to do is the wrong thing, but she sighs into his mouth and her fingers entwine in his hair and he knows, somehow, that this is how she wants him to be there for her right now.

He takes off her jacket, gently, slowly … just in case she wants to stop him, then stands for a moment to take off his own. She looks at him, full of trust and wonder, and smiles a little as he tenderly, _reverently_ takes off her shirt revealing a tank top underneath. Again, he pauses, waits for her to say _this is stupid_. _I can’t do this. Let’s go._ She doesn’t.

She wraps her hand around the back of his neck and lays back, pulling him with her, caressing the back of his neck while he presses his mouth to hers again.

He’s not even sure how but he realises his own hand has pushed up her tank top, and his palm’s resting at her waist while his fingertips trace her ribs. Within moments, his lips are following, pressing tender kisses along the top of her jeans, up over her navel, along her ribs.

“Nathan,” she sighs, and he stops, still waiting for her to whisper _We need to go._

He looks up, finds her gaze waiting to latch on to his. He raises an eyebrow gently in question, and she nods. He presses another, open-mouthed kiss to her stomach.

“Are you sure?” he whispers.

“I need you,” she whispers back. “I need you to love me.”

“I do,” he assures her. “You know I do. So much.”  
“Show me?”

He pulls back, one knee on the edge of the bed, and hauls his t-shirt up over his head. Even given the emotional rollercoaster of the last few hours, he can’t say he doesn’t love the way her eyes sweep over his abs and chest, and he can’t help but smirk a little. She clocks his look and giggles and blushes and yeah, the nightmare is over. They’re okay. Here, now, they’re young and gorgeous with their lives ahead of them. They’re _there_ for each other. They’re _it_ for each other. They’re in a great place. They’re in love and …

He trails fiery kisses up her side, exhales a moist breath through her bra and mouths at it, making her flesh go goosebumpy and her nipple harden.

“God,” she sighs, all residual bits of tension leaving her body with the exhalation.

He chuckles against her skin, knows she’s desperate for him to kiss her lips long and hard and thoroughly, but he continues his trail of kisses, up her throat, around her neck, under her ear, denying her what she’s sighing for.

She retaliates; nips at his jaw, creates a trail of interspersed kisses and flicks of her tongue down his throat and to his chest, teases his nipple by mouthing at the metal ring through it, tugs at it a little with her lips, circles it with the tip of her tongue, then moves teasingly to the other side of his chest. He arches his back abruptly, pressing his groin to hers and grinding hard against her. Fuck, she’s so damned sexy. His abrupt move makes her gasp, pleasurably at first then … not.

“Ow. _Ow_ ,” she moans. “My hair.”

“Shit.”  
One of her curls is caught; wrapped around his nipple ring and she’s grimacing. He moves forward to loosen the taut strain on her hair and she immediately relaxes.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, “hold still.”

“How did that not hurt you?” she asks as he gently untangles her hair.

“Um … good pain?” he suggests with a flirty smirk.

“Okay,” she giggles, “got something you need to tell me, Nathan?”  
“Well,” he shrugs, “it _was_ fucking sexy when you told me to come for you that time in your bathroom. Maybe you’re uncovering hidden kinks in me or something?”  
“Ew!” she squawks at him, wrinkling her nose. “Don’t even think about asking me to wear stiletto thigh high boots and crack a whip at you.”

“Geeze, so disappointing,” he counters drily. “You know, I thought you wanted me to be honest with you,” he teases. “Shouldn’t talking about our sex life be like … a _safe space_ , or something?”

“Ohmigod, what _have_ you been watching?” she retorts, then holds a finger up in warning when he goes to speak.

“You want to _talk_ about our sex life, right now?” she challenges him, eyebrow raised. “Or you actually want to … you know … _do_ something about it?”

“You know the answer to that,” he says, pressing his lips to the pulse below her ear. “I _always_ want to do something about it. Because you,” he says, moving his lips to press them to her collar bone. “Are.” And another to the scar on her shoulder. “The.” With an expert flick of his wrist unfastening the front snap on her bra. “Sexiest.” Licking down her skin and circling the tip of his tongue around her exposed nipple. “Most gorgeous.” Dipping his tongue into her navel. “Most amazing.” Unbuttoning her jeans and lowering the zip. “Girl … no, woman.” Moving to taste her lips while she wriggles her way out of her jeans. “Ever.” Fastening his parted lips over her other breast and teasing, sucking, licking, blowing.

“Nate,” she sighs, her hands fluttering near his abdomen. “I need …”  
He stands, holds her wanton gaze as he unbuttons and unzips his jeans, lowers them and his boxers in one swift movement, steps out of them and stands, in all his naked glory, as her eyes rake over him.

“You said,” he says, voice roughened with his own desire. “You said you need me to love you.”

“I do.”

“I need you too,” he says, pressing his own knee to the bed between hers, bumping her leg sideways gently, reaching forward to lighting trace his fingers over the path his lips had just taken; from the pulse below her ear, over her delicate collar bone, over her chest and around her nipple, tweaking and pinching just enough to make her moan a little, down to navel, then further.

She sighs in deep relief as he circles two strong fingers around, then slips them down and slowly, slowly spreads her and pushes them into her. He watches, rapt, as his fingers slide in and out, as she sighs again and moves her thighs apart, giving him greater access, more room to move.

He rests his other hand on the bed next to her hip and tears his gaze away from where his fingers are at work, just for a moment, just to watch her eyelids flutter delightfully and her lips part deliciously. He can’t help it; he has to lean forward and dip his tongue between those lips. Taste her. She moans a little and who knows if it’s because she loves him tasting her mouth or doesn’t love the fact that his fingers have stilled while he does so, or maybe both.

The long, satisfied, anticipatory sigh she lets out when he resumes his ministrations goes straight to his gut and his groin and if he wasn’t already aching to be inside her, he certainly is now. But he wants to watch her first, wants to watch her build and build, and to see the fireworks when she lets go.

He leans forward again, careful not to cease the rhythm of his fingers this time; plunging, twisting, ever so gradually gathering momentum, his thumb occasionally circling the tight little nub above, applying a little pressure then easing off, then circling again, while his fingers plunge and dip and twist. He rests his other hand at her cheek, presses his fingertips just a little to her skin, rests the tip of his thumb on her bottom lip and groans as her lips part and her bottom lip folds a little under the pressure of his thumb.

Her eyelids flutter again, opening this time and his inky blue gaze locks with hers.

“Good?” he husks at her.

“Jesus, yes,” she mutters.

“You’re beautiful,” he tells her as he draws his fingers back a little from her warm, wet core, adds a third then gently eases them back into her.

“Oh, God,” is her response on a tortured sigh.

“So beautiful,” he repeats as he twists his fingers then plunges, withdraws, plunges harder and stills. “So sexy.”

“Nathan,” she sighs out, her hips lifting off the bed in frustration then dropping back down.

“I’m going to make you come,” he says ever so gently.

“Nate, please …”

“ _Really_ hard,” he continues. “I’m going to take away the last day for you. I’m going to replace all that fear and drama and make your body, make _you,_ feel amazing.”

“I …”  
“Don’t talk,” he murmurs, covering her mouth with his and plunging his tongue into her mouth and kissing her hard and long and desperately until she’s writhing and clamping her thighs against his arm, silently telling him to _move_.

He pulls back and resumes his firm yet tender movements, his gaze moving from her flushed face to his rhythmically moving hand and back. Yeah, she is … a goddess, he thinks. _His_ goddess.

He moves his free hand to rest at her waist, his thumb alternately pressing into and caressing her hip bone, not holding her down, not restricting her … but a signal to her; he’s increasing his tempo and his intensity and she’s pulsing and almost there.

She shudders a little and he feels her hips tilt, then she freezes, and he knows her, knows her body, her glorious, slender but womanly body; knows she’s so, so close. Her eyes close and her eyelashes make a stunning shadow against her cheeks, but he wants to see those deep green pools.

“Babe,” he husks, instantly gratified when she opens her eyes and locks them to his.

“C’mon, baby, let the day go.”  
He takes just a momentary look down at himself, sees how he’s straining and pulsing towards her. His body is desperate to join with hers. Soon.

“Let go,” he repeats, joining their gazes again and applying a firm, tight circle of pressure with his thumb. “Let go; it’s your turn.”

He slides his fingers home once more and hooks them against her wall and rotates the pad of his thumb hard. “Come for me,” he says as she gasps, her hips buck up hard. She unfolds before his eyes.

He continues to move his fingers in her, slow and mesmerizingly, drawing out her pleasure until she’s almost, _almost_ calming down, then he slides forward and replaces his fingers with his pulsing, arousal and plunges into her firmly, snapping his hips back and pushing forward again. He’s held off and God, he _loves_ watching her when she’s high like that. But he is _so_ hard right now and he’s just completely beyond a slow and measured action.

She moves, draws her knees up and out and rests her heels in the small of his back and somehow manages to grip his hips and haul him closer. He tips forward, rests his elbows either side of her head and she pulls him closer still and locks her legs around him and presses her hips up into him and he’s thrusting hard and fast and she’s encouraging him on with her touch and with sexy whispers and instructions near his ear. She tells him _harder_. And _faster_. That if he can hold out just a minute or two more, she thinks she’ll come again. For _him_.

He holds back and holds back and just when he thinks he’s going to have to count backwards (which he really doesn’t want to have to do because my God, she feels amazing around him and he doesn’t want to take even a little of his focus off that feeling as she tightens around him and releases and tightens), she digs her fingertips into his ass and whispers just one more word. _Now._

And they fly together.

Their drive back to Tree Hill is comfortably quiet, with one stop to get a late breakfast at a diner, then another brief stop for coffee and the bathroom. It’s a half hour or so after that that she reaches for him, wrapping her fingers around his wrist as he changes gear so that he doesn’t return his hand to the steering wheel. He glances at her in question; can instantly see that she’s thinking about something; how she wants to ask him something. So, he just waits.

“How did you know?” she asks him, her thumb moving rhythmically across the pulse at his wrist, which he’s sure makes that pulse race a little faster. “How did you know just what to say? Just how to help me?”

“How do you think?” he asks, turning to look at her for a moment before return his focus to the road.  
“I don’t know. That’s why I asked.”  
“I knew how it felt.”  
“What?”  
“Having the most important person in your life under threat.”  
She frowns; she still doesn’t understand what he’s saying.

“When your Dad called me and said you’d been in a car wreck,” he explains. “It’s like … I don’t know, Peyton; it’s like everything just came down to one point. And that point was just so, so tiny and so, so huge all at the same time.”  
“Yeah,” she says softly. “I know.”

“I’m so glad your Dad is okay,” he says quietly.

“Yeah, me too, of course. I think …”  
“You think what?”  
“I’m a little afraid still.”  
“Of what?”  
“I’m a little afraid that … I mean, if the thought of losing my Dad was that bad, I mean … what if it was …”

“What if it was?” he presses gently, turning his hand over so that he wraps his fingers around her. “What could be worse than that, babe? But … it’s okay. _He’s_ okay.”

“Worse than that? What if it …? What if it was you?”  
“I … me?”

“I … I can’t lose you. I mean ... this seems so insane. Just a few weeks ago we were broken up and I was … God, Nathan, I was almost chasing your brother!”  
“Almost?” he teases. “I think you were chasing him, actually.” His smirk makes her wrestle her hand away from his and slap him on the bicep.

“You know,” she says, poking in the arm, “that’s a bit rich coming from you, buster. You’re the one that had trouble keeping it in your pants.”  
“I know,” he cringes. “How things change, huh?”  
“I ... yeah,” she says, with a long exhale.

He shakes his head a little, amazed at how sure he is that he’s past that shit, and that she’s accepting that he is too, then wraps his hand around hers again, brings it to his lips and kisses the inside of her wrist.

“Peyton, can you take a deep breath and listen to me for a sec?”

She nods, biting her lip, peeking at him from beneath her lashes.

“I love you,” he says strongly. “And the past is the past, right? I love you. And the last few weeks have been nuts, and, you know, I wish I could promise you that our Senior year will be less nuts, but I don’t know? We live in this crazy little town that has crazy stuff and stupid soap opera drama going on just ... constantly. So, who knows? But I _can_ promise you one thing. And that is that I will not stop loving you. And I will _always_ be yours. And I will _always_ be there for you. You are not going to lose me.”

“Always?” she whispers, squeezing his hand.

“Always,” he says emphatically.


	15. “You remember?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you remember saying you couldn’t say our Senior year would be less nuts?”  
> “No. Did I?” he says. “I remember saying I love you and I’d always be yours,” he adds, hauling her to a stop and leaning in to kiss her for a minute.  
> “Well,” she says, laughing properly now, pushing him away and making him pout theatrically, “you did. You said something about crazy soap opera drama in our crazy little town.”  
> “Wow. I must’ve had a psychic moment, huh?” he says wryly as they resume their walk. “I mean … Junior year was kind of crazy enough, but this year has just been a mess. And I don’t mean a hot mess either. Well … except for you and me. We’re always hot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A largely conversational chapter, in which a somewhat different version of Nathan and Peyton's Senior Year, and that of a few others, is revealed without us having to actually live through it.

**March 2007 - Senior Year - just after the end of basketball season, so almost a year and a half later.**

“So,” she says, out of the blue after a few minutes of quiet, as they wander along the sidewalk, hand in hand. “Do you remember the drive back from when we had to go and do that ID?”  
“ID?” he asks, not sure what she’s talking about, the question being a sharp change of conversation.

“That storm,” she replies, “when we thought My Dad was missing.”  
“Oh God,” he exhales harshly, dragging his free hand across his closely cropped hair. (It’s a relatively new look and she _loves_ it. It took her two weeks to stop rubbing her palm over his head.) “That seems a million years ago.”

“I know,” she half-laughs, half-sighs, “but you know what? It’s not even a year and a half.”  
“So ... what about it?” he asks curiously. “I’d have thought you’d want to wipe that entire day or so from your memory banks.”  
“Do you remember saying you couldn’t say our Senior year would be less nuts?”  
“No. Did I?” he says. “I remember saying I love you and I’d always be yours,” he adds, hauling her to a stop and leaning in to kiss her for a minute.

“Well,” she says, laughing properly now, pushing him away and making him pout theatrically, “you did. You said something about crazy soap opera drama in our crazy little town.”  
“Wow. I must’ve had a psychic moment, huh?” he says wryly as they resume their walk. “I mean … Junior year was kind of crazy enough, but _this_ year has just been a mess. And I don’t mean a hot mess either. Well … except for you and me. We’re always hot.”  
“I know,” she agrees shaking her head. “It has been a mess of a year. Lucas’ stupid bouncing between Brooke and Haley.”  
“Thank God he finally settled with Haley,” Nathan replies firmly, his genuine relief readily apparent. “I mean, she’s gotten over herself lately but I really don’t know if I could’ve gotten on board with Brooke Davis as my sister-in law.”

“Yeah, but _c’mon_ ,” Peyton responds with an accompanying emphatic gesture of her free hand, “it took Hales _getting shot_ for him to finally wake up to himself!”

“To think that could’ve been you,” he nudges her. “Bleeding out in the library and telling Lucas you love him.”

“Oh, _stop it_ ,” she declares. “My little … _almost_ _but not even_ a dalliance with him? You can just stop referring to that! You _know_ I was just … waiting for you to man up.”

“Just as well I did then, right?” he says, sharing a long look with her that clearly shows their mutual gratitude.

“Thank God for one thing,” he laughs as he continues. “At least all the teen romance crap over this year has been with other people, not with us. Compared to Skills and Bevin, Jake and that useless Nikki, Luke and Brooke, Luke and Haley, Luke and Brooke again, Luke and Haley again, _finally_.”  
“And then them getting _pregnant_!” Peyton chips in. “I mean, talk about like mother, like son ... at least it’s not like father, like son! I mean, fortunately for Haley, there was no way in hell Lucas wasn’t going be like the most attentive Dad-to-be ever!””

“I know,” Nathan grins, shaking his head a little. “Geeze, I think if he could have the ultrasounds himself, he would! And, I mean, it was so damned fast that it must’ve been happened the first time they even had sex,” Nathan grins.

“You Scotts and your hyper fertility,” Peyton mutters. 

“That’s why we’re super careful,” he reminds her. “You know, compared to all of that drama going on around us, we’ve been like … like the stable, boring old married couple.”  
“I am _not_ boring!” she squawks, with mock indignation.

“No,” he says, with a merry twinkle in his eye, stopping and moving his free hand to her cheek, his thumb moving mesmerizingly on the pulse at her neck. “You. Are. Never. Boring. You are … sexy as hell and …”  
“You’re so lucky to have me,” she giggles, tiptoeing to peck his lips then pulling back and taking his hand again so they can continue along their way. “But ... even without the teen romance drama being around us, it’s been … I mean … I know it’s ultimately been a really good thing, and I’m so pleased that you and Deb have become really close now, and I _love_ her, I really do … but your Mom going into rehab … that was tough at first.”

“My Dad shooting my uncle was tougher,” he retorts. “I mean … fuck. How does that even …?”  
“I’m so glad Keith made it,” she says, her eyes wide and staring into his. “Nathan, I’m _so_ glad about that. He just … he’s been _so_ great for you. With Dan in prison, it’s … I just … it’s _amazing_ seeing the way you and Lucas and Keith have grown so close out of all this. There’s been good too, you know, this year, not just awful stuff. And you and Luke and Keith? That’s just one of those good things.”

“But … I mean … Luke getting diagnosed with HCM.”  
“Yeah. And … and …”

“You finding out that you’re adopted?” he says, knowing that sometimes she still finds it a little difficult to say the ‘A’ word.  
“And that I have a Mom again,” she breathes. “I mean … you know … no one can ever replace my Mom, but it’s … cool to have Ellie.”

“She’s lucky to have you, you know?” Nathan muses. “I know it was hard for you to … accept all that, and to let her in.”  
“I honestly don’t know if I could have if she hadn’t been sick,” Peyton says thoughtfully. “I know that sounds awful but … it was a lot, and …”  
“I think you would have.”  
“Do you?” she asks, turning to look at him curiously.

“I do, yeah,” he affirms, tightening his grip a little on her hand in a reassuring squeeze. “I mean … you still do that punky, sarky, moody artist thing but no one who knows you believes that’s the real you. You’ve been so … _kind_ and … and so _giving_ to so many people. Look at those amazing events you’ve organised at Tric for Karen. Look at the way you helped out Jake with Jenny.”

“Who wouldn’t do that?” she counters, her eyes shining with affection. “Geeze, that kid is the cutest thing ever. And Jake is …”  
“Yeah,” Nathan laughs. “Jake is another reason why I’m glad I got my shit together last year.”  
“What? Why? How is that relevant?”  
“’Cos if I hadn’t, Lucas might not have won you over, but Jake sure as hell would have.”  
“What? _No!”_ she exclaims, completely shocked.  
“What? _Yes!_ ” he argues back. “Seriously, babe, you and Jake have something really … genuine and special. He’s awesome, and I love how reliable he is on defence, and I really like _him,_ but if you’d been single, or if I’d still been being a dick, trust me, it would’ve been Jeyton for sure. _Annnnd_ ,” he says, raising his free hand to waggle his forefinger at her when she opens her mouth to deny his statement, “you’d have been Jenny’s stepmom within a couple years of now.”

“Well, I don’t agree,” she says gently, kind of loving the way he’s looking at her, with appreciation and gratitude and a ‘there but for the grace of God’ hanging between them - unsaid but very much felt. “But anyway, we don’t need to find out, do we?”  
“No,” he says firmly. “Instead, a few years from now, you’ll be _my_ kids’ Mom.”  
“I … _what?”_ she says, pulling to a halt and looking up at him with those green eyes. Surprised. Maybe even a bit shocked. But he observes with satisfaction, she is definitely not showing any signs of being against.

“Two,” he says with a nonchalant shrug, noting what a stop-start walk this has been as all these revelations come out. “A boy then a girl. Or a girl then a boy. Either way, one of each.”

“Got it all planned out, mister, don’t you?” she says softly, almost wistfully, in a way that truly confirms she’s not against the idea at all; far from it.

“Yep,” he responds confidently. “And they’ll be perfectly timed to be born between seasons so I can be super hands on when they’re tiny and squawky and demanding and they’ll be gorgeous and clever and kind and amazing, just like their mother.”

She blushes furiously and he laughs at her.

“So, where were we?” she asks in an attempt to divert the conversation as they start walking again.  
“Talking about how gorgeous you are?” he suggests.  
“ _Stop it!_ No … Ellie. We were talking about Ellie.”  
“That remission news was pretty exciting, huh?”

“Such a relief,” she exhales. “I … I’m not ready to lose a second mother, Nate, I’m really not.”

“Well, hopefully it won’t happen for a long, long time yet,” he says gently. “She’s looking after herself and doing everything right. And she has you to live for now. That’s the coolest thing about this year, you know? You have way more people looking out for you now too; not just Larry and me. You’ve got Brooke back. Lucas and Haley just adore you and I guarantee that, when she drops that sprog, they’ll ask you to be Godmother. And you have Derek.”

“The _real_ Derek,” she says with a great deal of emphasis.  
  
“Not that fucking _psycho_ Banks.”  
“You kicked his ass,” she says with pride, though she’s cringing a little too.

“I did,” he says matter of factly. “Then _you_ did. You and Brooke; you two kicked his ass big time.”  
“She was a warrior,” Peyton says with real awe. “That’s something good too,” she adds in a whisper, “I’m glad I have Brooke back.”

“She’s goddam lucky too; lucky you’re so forgiving, babe,” he says with a tone of wonder that she could have been. “She just … before she had that hunch and turned up in your basement to take on that sicko with you, she’d been such a bitch.”  
“Nope, she won’t be,” Peyton says with certainty. “She’s back to being the Brooke I knew when my Mom died. She won’t be a bitch anymore.”

“She’d better not be,” he growls.

“Protective much?” she teases, looking up at him with a glint in her eye.  
“Hell, yes! I don’t like seeing you in pain.”  
“Well,” she says with what he thinks is a somewhat wicked ‘I know something you don’t know’ smile, “you’re gonna have to in minute.”  
“I ... what?”

“And you’d better be ready to have me squeeze the blood out of your hand, too,” she adds.  
“What are you talking about?”

She stops suddenly and opens the door to the store in front of them and pulls him inside. He stands, looking absolutely stunned, as he realises that she’s dragged him into a tattoo parlour.

“What are you …?” he eventually whispers, leaning into her side, after looking around the room, eyes agog, for a full minute.

“Well,” she says in a very flirtatious tone, “I don’t know how good _your_ memory is, ‘cos you didn’t even remember saying our Senior year would be nuts, and that little chat happened _after_ this next conversation I’m going to remind you of … but I remember promising, a long, _long_ time ago – or so it seems - that if you won State champs Senior year …”  
“Which we just did,” he says rather smugly.  
“Successfully defending your State champs win from Junior year …”  
“Oh, you’re so lucky to have me,” he teases, repeating her own words from a few minutes earlier.

“And … you remember what I promised?” she asks, hip tilted and eyebrow raised.

“I … yeah, _of course_ ,” he says with an awed tone, “but … I mean … you …”  
“I came in the other day and chose two typefaces I really like,” she informs him, eyes gleaming and with a smartass grin. “You wanna make the final choice?”  
“I … are you _sure_?” he asks, his jaw slack with surprise.

“You don’t want to choose it?” she asks, hands on hips and head tilted to one side cheekily. “Or you don’t want me to do it?”  
“I ... _no!_ I want to choose it. But …”

He stops and pulls her to the corner of the store, rests his large hands at her hips and bends down a little and stares intently into her green eyes.

“Babe,” he says in the gravelly tone he has when he’s _seriously_ turned on. “Babe, I … this is … this is a big deal.”

“Yes,” she says, with a little nod of her head, “it is. And _you_ are a big deal. You’re amazing. And the last year and a half has been … huge. And I never could have gotten through it all without you. And I know you couldn’t have gotten through it without me either.”  
“That’s 100% true,” he agrees. “I’m glad you realise that.”

“And,” she continues, “next year we are getting out of soap opera central and _we_ are going to college.”  
“Not just to college,” he adds. “To _Duke_.”

“Your dream school,” she says with a lopsided smile.  
“And with my dream girl,” he adds with a little squeeze of her hips.

“And you have a full ride, Nathan. You … your life from here is just …”  
“ _Our_ life,” he corrects gently. “I still kind of can’t believe that you’re coming with me. I mean … you were offered a place at SCAD, babe. That’s huge.”  
“I know,” she smiles. “It was kind of amazing to know I could go if I wanted to.”  
“Are you … I mean, are you really, truly sure that Duke is …?”  
“You’ve asked me that way too many times. The answer isn’t going to change; I need to be where you are,” she says simply, resting her hands on his forearms for a moment to emphasis her words. “You’re right; this is _our_ life, Nate. This is _our dream_ coming true.”  
“Peyton,” a voice comes from behind. “Right on time.”  
“Hey Otto,” she grins, turning around. “This is Nathan.”  
“Yeah, I know,” the guy says, extending his hand and shaking hands firmly with Nathan, “amazing season, man.”  
“I … wow, thanks.”  
“You look surprised,” Otto laughs. “Not used to tattooed, pierced ball fans?”

“Well, not so much. I mean … I dunno … maybe I mean not visibly anyway?”  
“Yeah,” Peyton giggles, “his discreet little nipple ring doesn’t count, right?”

Nathan looks slightly mortified and even blushes, making Peyton and Otto laugh at his discomfort.

“Well,” Otto says with a casual shrug, “I’m about to ink up your girl, man, so you might want to prepare yourself.”  
“For what?” Nathan asks, a little defensively, “I’m not squeamish. I don’t faint at the sight of needles or anything.”  
“Nope,” Otto says over his shoulder as he leads them back to a screened off private room. “I meant you might like it so much that _you_ decide to get some work done; for her.”

Nathan halts in his tracks and stares blankly for few moments and Peyton can see the cogs turning in his mind. This could get interesting, she thinks.

Otto hands her printouts of the two designs they’d shortlisted the other day; both 23s, of course. The first in a just slightly slenderer version of the standard number font that graces most basketball jerseys, the second sleek and stylish and more contemporary. There’s really no contest for Nathan and he almost instantly hands the first one to Otto.

“I thought that would be your pick,” Peyton laughs. “Next time you have to be braver.”

“You’re the one getting stabbed with needles or whatever,” he points out. “You’re the one that has to be brave.”

“Funny,” she says drily. “I get to squeeze your hand though. And I _meant_ you need to be braver about the typeface.”  
“I know. When I get my first NBA jersey. That’s one hell of a motivation for the next four years, babe.”

“So,” Otto says patting the bench. “You need to lie flat for this if you want it on your hip.”  
Nathan can’t say he’s thrilled that his girlfriend is removing her trousers in front of another guy, but he does get that it’s essential. He’d noticed she was wearing loose, flowing trousers which she hardly ever does, but it hadn’t occurred to him that this was the reason why. In fact, all the way through that long, meandering stop-start walk he’d had no thoughts as to their destination, had just walked unquestioningly alongside her. He smiles to himself; he has no doubt that he’ll walk unquestioningly alongside her wherever she wants to go. Forever.

She’s lying on the reclining chair and Otto’s preparing his gear and Nathan still can’t really believe this is happening.

“How much does it hurt?” he asks Otto.

“Depends,” the artist replies laconically.

“On?”

“Where it is. More fat, less pain.”

“Jesus,” Nathan mutters, “She’s tiny; there’s no fat anywhere on her. Is this …?”

“Nathan,” she protests, “stop it. It’s fine. It’s supposed to be more like a stingy burn with an annoying vibration. I’ll be fine. And it’s not a big area.”  
“Some people really like it,” Otto adds. “Some even get off on it.”

“They’re sick,” Nathan retorts.

“Takes all types,” Otto shrugs. “Ours is not to reason why. Alright, ready Peyton?”

“Absolutely,” she says firmly, extending her hand out to Nathan, who moves closer, stands at her shoulder across from Otto, and winces as she instantly squeezes the bejesus out of his hand. Otto hasn’t even started yet.

“What the …?” he exclaims, extracting his hand and flexing it before tentatively returning it to her grasp.

“Just getting you warmed up,” she teases.

“Well, I won’t feel a damned thing after that,” he tells her. “You have one helluva grip.”

“Okay,” Otto says. “We’re ready to go.”

It really doesn’t take very long. Within seconds of that first dark line appearing on her skin, Nathan relaxes. Otto is clearly in complete control and Peyton breathes long, slow, deep breaths and it’s only after each brief break, when Otto resumes work, that she squeezes his hand a little.

It’s intimate; _so_ intimate. Her. Him. An expert tending to her. It really doesn’t take much imagination, given the conversation about kids just a few minutes ago, to leap forward a few years and see a different expert, this time in scrubs, tending to a basketball shaped belly. And her squeezing the life out his hand for an entirely different reason.

He makes a decision right then. He’s been pondering on it for a while and has what he needs in a zipped pocket inside his jacket. He’s been carrying it around, waiting for the right time. In no rush. Carrying no anxiety. Just waiting for the perfect moment. He’s found it. Or she’s made it. Or both.

He looks at her face and it’s clear that, while _he’s_ been watching his jersey number appear on her hip, _she’s_ been watching him. Her eyes are wide and shining and there’s no sign of pain or tears, just pure love. For him. And, as he has hundreds of times in the last year and a half, he thanks his lucky stars that she saw enough in him and felt enough for him, that she gave him another shot.

“What are you looking at?” he asks fondly.

“You.”  
“Why?”  
“Painkiller,” she says coyly. “Remember?”  
“Hell, yes.”  
“Really?”  
“You’re still my upper,” he says to verify, then bends to press his lips to hers.

She winces a bit as she pulls her trousers over the dressed site of her new ink, but other than that she doesn’t seem uncomfortable. She listens attentively as Otto explains what she needs to do to look after the site over the next few days, then takes the small pack he gives her, passing him cash in exchange.

They walk back along the way they came, heading towards Nathan’s car in unspoken agreement.

“You okay to take a little detour and walk a bit further?” he asks, interrupting the comfortable silence, when they’re about halfway to their parking spot.

“Sure,” she shrugs. “You want something to eat? Coffee?” Then she pauses. “Oh, ice cream?” she adds hopefully.

“Ice cream after,” he chuckles.

“After what?”  
“Wait and see.”  
“I’m not all that keen on surprises,” she reminds him.

“You sprung one on me just now,” he retorts.

“Hmmm<” she intones sceptically.  
“You’ll like it. I promise.”  
“As much as you liked my surprise to you?”  
“I’m not sure anyone could like anything _that_ much,” he fires back with a sexy growl.

She laughs and he tells her he’s dead serious, then they wander on with their hands entwined for a few more minutes before he turns a corner and steers then along a curved path to a pretty little corner of the park, with a picnic table and a couple of bench seats.

They sit, her leaning back more than him, keeping her torso rigid to prevent the tender skin at her hip folding over, and she looks at him a little fiercely, one of her perfect eyebrows quirked in question. She knows this spot.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about stuff,” he says after keeping her waiting - not very patiently – for a minute or two, “and there’s something important I want to ask you.”

“So, you brought me to the exact spot where you first asked me out?” she asks with a warm tone.

“You remember?”  
“Of course, I remember. You were so cocky but so casual; it’s no wonder I didn’t realise you were thinking of it as a proper date.”

“Well. I’m not being casual now, okay?” he informs her, his eyes deep and serious.  
“Okay.”

“And, just so you know … I might have looked cocky and casual, but I’d been trying to screw up the courage to ask you out for months.”

“Really? You have never told me that! That’s so sweet.”  
“Jesus, I am _not_ sweet, okay!?” he grumbles.

“Hate to tell you, baby,” she says, rubbing her palm up his forearm, “but sometimes you really are.”

“Just … shut up and listen to me!”  
“Yeah … nice approach, so far, Romeo.”

“Hush you! Let me … look … we’ve been through a lot, you and me; together and apart. And that was true before the last year and a half, way before that day when we thought your Dad was missing and maybe worse. Way before all the other ridiculous dramas we’ve had.”  
“I know,” she says softly.

“Anyway, the thing is … I don’t want to do it apart ever again. You have been _amazing_ to me through _everything_. I did a lot of stupid things in the past, and I know it’s going back a bit and I know you know I’ll never do that shit again. And I know we’re great now. And I know we always will be, come thick or thin. And … you know I’m never going to be a perfect guy, Peyton, we _both_ know that. I will definitely screw stuff up still, but, you know, back in Junior year, when we were on the brink, and really trying to pull it back together, you said something that’s helped me so much since then.”  
“What did I say?” she asks, genuinely curious.  
“You said you didn’t want me to be perfect, that you just wanted me to be perfect for _you_ , and that’s what I want too. That’s what I shoot for every day.”  
“You’ve got a pretty damned good hit rate on that these days,” she says, smiling up at him.

“Good. So, that means I have a pretty decent chance that … that you’ll let me give you something.”

He takes a deep breath, then tucks his fingers inside his jacket, into that zipped pocket, pulling them out and tentatively opening his palm. Her eyes widen and her fingers move involuntarily towards it before she snatches them back.

“It’s … I mean I’m not being crazy or anything,” he rushes out. “It’s a promise ring, not a … I mean … who gets engaged in high school, right?”

His lips twitch as he recalls his conversation with her Dad, Larry revealing his belief that after college, or maybe in their final year, Nathan will be repeating this action, with another ring. Maybe when she adds an inked number to her other hip. A momentary flash of PES tattooed on his own pec, over his heart, flashes through his mind. Maybe with a couple of other sets of three initials underneath; little Sawyer Scott offspring initials.

“Yes,” her softly spoken reply cuts through his thoughts.

“Um … yes?” he says with a teasing note of disbelief. “You get a big, romantic, heartfelt declaration and I get … _yes_?”  
“Yes, you can put that beautiful promise ring on my finger – and it is _absolutely gorgeous_ , by the way - and yes, I understand _exactly_ what accepting your ring means and yes, you can kiss me _right now_.”

He takes her hand, runs the pad of his thumb down the top of her slender fingers as his fingertips rest against her palm. Leans in and kisses her temple, then slides the ring carefully up her ring finger, twists it a little to go over her knuckle, turns it between his fingertips when it’s in place, rubs his thumb over it as he looks up to meet her gaze.

“I love you,” he says. “I really, truly, fucking love you. And I promise I will always. Sometimes I can’t believe I still have you, that you …”

“Gave you another chance?”  
“Yeah. For real this time.”

“Nate?”  
“Yeah, babe?”  
“I love you too, but if you don’t kiss me right this minute …”

“But I thought you wanted ice cream?” he says with an innocent tone but a devilish look.

“After,” she says firmly.

“After?”

“That’s second dessert, to come after my first dessert.”  
“What’s your first dessert?” he asks, all innocence again.

“Your kisses,” she says with a coy look as her fingers trace over his chest.

It’s one of those slow burn kisses; the ones that start out with a simple press of lips to lips. Then a slight pull back and a deep and heartfelt meeting of gazes that magnetically pulls their lips back together for a series of soft, sweet, tender kisses. They both sigh, then groan a little and the flame takes hold.

She wraps her hand around the back of his neck, pulls his head down, tilts hers and opens her mouth to him and it’s a tussle of tongues and teeth and warm breath and nibbles and sighs for goodness knows how long.

It’s Nathan that pulls back, profoundly aware that if they keep this up for much longer, he’s not going to be able to walk back to the car in comfort, let alone anywhere else.

“You just wait ‘til we get back to your place,” he mutters.

“Oh yeah?”

“Hell, yeah,” he says with considerable emphasis. “Just as well your Dad’s away, ‘cos babe, I can confidently predict that you will _not_ be sleeping tonight.”

“Promises, promises,” she teases.

“Well … you know, I just gave you a promise ring after all,” he retorts.

“And what? It’s a promise to have _sex_ all night?” she asks teasingly with a raised eyebrow.

“It’s a promise to rock your world. Regularly and often.”

“Well … I guess I can go for that.”

  
She holds her hand out in front of her as they finally walk back through the little park towards the road, tilting it to and fro as she admires her beautiful new piece of jewellery.

“It’s a beautiful ring, Nate,” she tells him, a dreamy tone to her voice.

“Hey!” he exclaims, grabbing her ringed hand and pulling her to a halt. “ _You_ didn’t make the promise!”

“Promise?”

“I gave you a ring, babe, and you accepted it and _I_ promised to love _you_ always. You didn’t promise back.”

“Are you being insecure?” she teases lightly.

“Hell, no. I know you want me.”

Peyton rolls her eyes, drops his hand and starts backing away, her eyes alight with laughter.

“Peyton Elizabeth Sawyer,” he earns, “don’t make me chase you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Nathan Royal Scott,” she retorts. “You’ve been chasing me for … what is it now? About 3 years?”

He darts and grabs her (not that she makes even the slightest attempt to escape him) and, mindful of her hip, he wraps his arms around her waist from behind and swings her round in a couple of exuberant rotations before he places her back on her feet.

“Three years,” he agrees, turning her round to face him. “Plus the rest of our lives.”

“Promise?”

“Already did, babe.”

“Well then, I promise I’ll let you keep chasing me for the rest of our lives then.”

“You’re a tease.”

“You love it.”

“Yes,” he agrees. “Yes, I do.”

“I love you,” she grins at him. “And I will for the rest of our lives, I promise.”  
“Yeah?”  
“Yep,” she says, popping the p. “And I promise I’ll keep letting you catch me too.”


	16. Epilogue: The Scotts Are Coming Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You know, they give you media training when you’re a pro athlete. It’s so that you can face a room full of press and broadcasters with mics and cameras and a million questions and do it without being a bundle of nerves … so that you don’t embarrass yourself, your teammates or the organisation. Looking out at all of you, I have to say, dealing with all of that isn’t half as nerve-wracking as this is. All the media training in the world doesn’t prepare you for facing the people that were there when it all began.  
> In some ways, Tree Hill High and the Ravens feels like a thousand years ago and like another world, and yet in other ways, it feels like yesterday and like home. When I think about how I got from there to here, one thing I know for sure is that I didn’t do it alone. And before I accept this honour, this really great honour, there’s a few people that I need to thank publicly.”

**June 2022 – Tree Hill High School – 15 Year Reunion of Class of 2007**

The lights dim, a couple of spotlights join to create a focal point and, when the crowd quietens down, a tall, dirty blond-haired man in a beautifully tailored suit steps onto the stage and into the circle of golden light.

“Good evening everyone, and welcome along to this special occasion, held as one of the highlight events of this reunion festival for the class of 2007. Feels like yesterday, right?”

Many in the crowd clap and he grins.

“And hey! We’re all still handsome and beautiful, right? We’re aging spectacularly well; I have to say. But it is, indeed, fifteen years since we left these halls, classroom, fields and yes, this gym. My name is Lucas Scott and, given that I’m the guy with the very great privilege of coaching the current Tree Hill Ravens, I’ve been asked to emcee this little shindig, at which we’re going to retire the jersey of one of our past Ravens, one of our greatest. Actually, you know what? I’m going out on a limb and saying he’s not just _one of our greatest_ ; he _is_ our greatest.”  
Lucas pauses partly for emphasis, and partly because the crowd erupts in a cheer so loud that he wouldn’t be heard over it anyway. He waits, grinning, stanch wide and arms crossed over his chest in a way that is familiar to many of the onlookers, including the current Ravens team who stand, ready to form a _guard_ of honour for the _guest_ of honour.

“Alright, settle down a bit or we’ll here all night,” Lucas jokes. “So, it might have escaped your notice but the lug we’re honouring tonight happens to share my last name. We’re here to retire #23, the Ravens jersey that my brother, Nathan Scott, wore for four years. That’s what the programme says and that’s what all the signage says so that’s not going to come as a surprise to any of you, but I do have one surprise for Nate, and for those of you that played ball with him, and before him, as Tree Hill Ravens.”

Lucas steps back out of the light for a moment and extends his hand to firmly shake that of an older man, who he ushers forward to the microphone.

“Like I said,” Lucas continues, “we’re all looking pretty good for 2007 plus fifteen years, but this old geezer? He must be a hundred, I reckon, but he still looks just the same as he did. He’s here to formally introduce Nathan, he taught both of us and plenty of others too, how to be not just a great coach but also a great man. Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together and help me welcome Coach Whitey Durham.”

Coach Durham _does_ look just the same, as he stands, nodding and grinning, accepting a heartfelt round of applause.

“Right,” he eventually says, stepping in close to the mic stand. “Let’s get this show on the road, shall we? Then we can get to dinner. And, more importantly, to the bar.”

He pauses, reaches inside his jacket to pull out his glasses and a piece of paper which he unfolds, glances at then screws into a ball and tosses over his shoulder.

“As if I need notes to tell you about Nathan Scott,” he grins. “You’re here for one of two reasons, or maybe for both reasons. You’re either a ball fan who has followed Nathan’s career; maybe through college at Duke, at the Sonics then at the Bobcats, in which case you already know he’s one hell of a ball player. Or you played ball with Nathan yourself; maybe at junior high then at high school, in which case you know he was _always_ a damned fine basketball player but that he was also a giant pain in the …” he pauses and waggles his eyebrows. “In the _proverbial._ At least until his Junior year when out of nowhere he became not just a fine player, but also a fine young man.”  
“As a coach, you’re privileged, every so often, to experience a jolt when you see a phenomenal player for the very first time. I can tell you that, despite my advanced years, I still remember every one of those moments. I recall, as if it was yesterday, the first time I saw a Freshman Nathan Scott in 2004. I had a couple of injuries on my varsity team and I needed a ring in, a _good_ ring in. So, I went to the JV practice and there he was, lighting up that court like I don’t know what. He was gangly and a loudmouth. Arrogant. Cocky. Stubborn as all get out. Attitude issues galore, but _hell,_ he was _good_. I have to admit I knew I was likely causing myself a pile of trouble, but I just couldn’t not pull him into the varsity team. As a Freshman. That does not happen very often. And I was right, he did cause me a pile of trouble … for the next couple of years ‘til he settled down.”

“It would be remiss of me not to mention that just before Nathan got himself sorted out, in what was his Junior year, I had another one of _those_ moments, when an old Raven and an old friend insisted on driving me down to the River Court to watch another Scott play ball. He was, at first look, and maybe at second, third and fourth look too, completely different to Nathan in every single way. But hell, _he_ was good too! That man is standing just beside here, Lucas Scott, and as you all know, in his tenure as coach here at Tree Hill High, Luke went on to be, as much as it pains me to admit it, the most successful Ravens coach there’s ever been, with three State champ wins and a couple of runner up in the last ten years. I honestly don’t know how he juggles the demands of high school coaching with his highflying literary author status, but I’ve no doubt there’s more to come from Luke, in both of those arenas.”

“So … back to Nathan then. His four years at Duke were incredible; amongst their best run ever. He was justifiably drafted by the Sonics straight out of college and I still don’t understand why he wasn’t Rookie of the Year for the 2012 NBA season; he damned well should have been.”

“Then … disaster happened, and Nathan wound up in a wheelchair with an outlook that was far from rosy. He could stand. He could walk; _just_. But not much more that that. I saw him a few times and I have to say, I truly thought that was it for his basketball career, and maybe even for _any_ career. Understandably, he wasn’t in a good place. Still … you may recall I said the young Nathan Scott was stubborn with an attitude issue and goodness, did that attitude and bullheadedness stand him in good stead after his accident. Because not only did he come back from it, he came back fighting. And he beat the odds and, as you all know, he’s been amongst the Charlotte Bobcats’ leading scorers for the last four seasons.

So … enough rambling from an old … what was it you called me, Luke? … a _geezer?_ You’re here for Nathan, and it gives me very great pleasure to ask you to be upstanding, and welcome the man to the stage so we can retire the jersey of one of the finest basketball players to ever come out of North Carolina. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, Nathan Scott.”

He’s shaking his head and grinning as he steps up onto the stage, dressed in finely tooled boots, smart designer jeans, a tailored dress shirt, open at the neck, and an immaculate jacket that fits him perfectly.

Coach Durham extends his hand, but Nathan just shakes his head and hauls his old coach into a tight hug, quietly saying a few words of thanks in Whitey’s ear, and asking the older man to make sure it’s Nathan that buys him his first Scotch at the bar.

Nathan and Lucas conduct their usual brotherly fist bumping and half hug before Lucas shoves Nathan good-naturedly towards the mic and tell him to get a move on.

Nathan stands for moment, holds his hand above his eyes and peers out at the crowd, turning from one side to the other.

“Wow,” he grins, “Luke was right. Damn, you’re all looking good!”

“Alright,” he continues, “you know, they give you media training when you’re a pro athlete. It’s so that you can face a room full of press and broadcasters with mics and cameras and a million questions and do it without being a bundle of nerves … so that you don’t embarrass yourself, your teammates or the organisation. Looking out at all of you, I have to say, dealing with all of _that_ isn’t half as nerve-wracking as _this_ is. All the media training in the world doesn’t prepare you for facing the people that were there when it all began.”

“In some ways, Tree Hill High and the Ravens feels like a thousand years ago and like another world, and yet in other ways, it feels like yesterday and like home. When I think about how I got from there to here, one thing I know for sure is that I didn’t do it alone. And before I accept this honour, this really _great_ honour, there’s a few people that I need to thank publicly.”

“Coach Durham … Whitey … for giving me a very nice intro just now and for giving me way, way too many chances when I kept blowing them, for instilling in me a love of the game that goes far beyond the drills, the skills and the plays.”

“My Mom for … well, persevering, I guess is the best way to put it. It wasn’t always easy for her, by any means, but she’s a stubborn woman, thank goodness, and she’s been a rock for me and my family since my last year at high school, right here in Tree Hill.”

“I don’t need to tell anyone in this gym about how amazing my uncle, Keith Scott, is. I didn’t know him so well for the first part of my life, but once I _got_ to know him, I knew there was no way I wouldn’t fight like hell to keep him in my life. Time and again, it’s Keith that has reminded me how much I _love_ playing basketball, and not just the big stadiums and all the hoop-la, either. Messing around down at the River Court is still one of my favourite things to do, especially if Keith is there, which is not so often since you clowns went and elected him to be your mayor, for goodness sake, but I get it. I mean … there’s no one more trustworthy than Keith Scott, right?”

“Thanks also to a lot of teammates over the years, including all of you ex-Ravens here right now.”

“My brother, Luke, who was originally an opponent and then a team mate, who had this amazing game taken away from him but who turned that loss upside down and became a truly great coach himself, something that fills me with pride and has inspired me to keep going, because _every time_ I step out onto that court, I play for both of us. Most of all though, I thank him for being part of my family.”

“Being a pro player is … everything you imagine … a dream come true; it really is. But it can be a long and twisty road to get there, and it’s a challenging … well, actually, it’s a damned difficult life for your nearest and dearest. The highs are sky high, that’s for sure, but the lows are … well, you don’t need to hear about them. Just take it from me, that to get through this life in one piece with your head and, more importantly, your _heart_ intact, you need someone pretty special at your side.”

“I’ve been … the only word that comes close is _blessed_ … to have the strongest, most amazing woman at my side for this whole wild ride. She’s been my other half – my _better_ half – since high school and when I say I would not have had my playing career without her, I’m not exaggerating. Not even a little bit.”

“She was never the traditional cheerleader type, but she was nevertheless cheering on the side lines when I was a Raven. She put aside her own amazing post-high school opportunity to go to Duke with me and, when my own bad judgement plus a bit of bad luck landed me in a wheelchair, right when we thought it was about to really pay off, it was her that saved my sanity, my health and my career and got me up and moving and, unbelievably to everyone except _her_ , back on the court. For the more than a decade since we graduated college, she’s spent way too many nights in hotel rooms away from home, and she’s spent way too many nights at home without her husband … and she’s done it for me, because she believes in me. And during all of that, she’s done an incredible job of being a Mom, and sometimes having to be the Dad as well, to our two gorgeous rugrats.”

He glances behind him and grins, leaning conspiratorially towards the mic.

“I can see her looking daggers at me already and she’ll no doubt kill me for doing this, but she should be up here with me for this, because it simply wouldn’t have been possible without her.”

He holds his hand out and gestures towards her, shakes his head at her, making it very plain that he simply won’t continue until she joins him.

“Hey, honey” he says as she joins him on stage, frowning and wagging her finger at him playfully.

“You are in so much trouble, mister,” she warns, laughingly, with a mock frown, so he merely kisses her temple and grins that charming Nathan Scott grin.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, rolling his eyes a little. “ _I’m_ in trouble with _you_? Anyone in this gym that was here at Tree Hill High with us will be having flashbacks right now.”

“So … one last thing,” he says, returning his attention to the crowd. “It’s kind of perfect timing that my Ravens jersey is being retired tonight, because on the news that will be broadcast in,” he checks his watch, “about one and a half minutes, they’re going to be running an interview that was recorded earlier today. The gist of that is that the next season will be my last for the Bobcats and, no, I’m not leaving the amazing organisation that took a chance on me after my accident and I’m not being traded either; I’m retiring from pro ball.”  
He pauses for a moment and the shock wave that passes around the gym is both visible and audible.

“I’ve had an amazing run, but it’s time … for a couple of reasons. Partly because I’ve pushed my back just about as far as I can without the serious risk of depriving my kids of a Dad that can actually do stuff with them, and also because it’s time for my wonderful wife to have her moment in the sun.”

“I really don’t know she did it,” he says, pulling her hand to his mouth and pressing a kiss to it, “but somehow over the years she’s found a little time for her own talent and passion … and that’s been recognised with an amazing offer to further that talent, and the fact that that offer is here in Tree Hill makes it too good for us to turn down.”

“So … come the end of Summer, the Scotts are coming home; our kids will be terrorising Tree Hill Elementary, and we’ll expect to see you all coming into the Peyton Sawyer-Scott Gallery. And yes, that is a shameless plug.”

“I’ve loved the game, I’ve loved that I got my start here as a Raven, and I’ve truly never taken it for granted. Thank you for coming out tonight; your presence here means a great deal to me.”

The applause is thunderous, and Nathan stands, looking somewhat bewildered for a few moments, until Whitey Durham gestures to the cord hanging from the velvet curtains high on the wall. Nathan takes Peyton’s hand and steps toward the cord, then raises their joined hands to grip the tasselled end.

“Ready?” he asks her. “Ready to close the curtain on the first quarter?”

“We’re opening a curtain, you idiot,” she laughs. “And that’s a very mixed metaphor for which Haley would haul you over the coals.”

“ _Opening_ a curtain then, on the second quarter of our lives?”  
“We’re gonna live a long time if this is only the start of the second.”  
“Damned right we are.”

They pull the cord together and step back to look at the old Ravens jersey on the wall. 23.

He can’t help himself. He steps behind her, rests his fingertips on her hips and his chin on her shoulder and kisses the side of her neck while his fingertips stroke against the black silk of the stylish trousers that cover her hipbones. It’s amazing, with the amount of time he spends trailing his fingertips over them, that he hasn’t worn off that ink over the years; the 23 on her right hip, the 12 on her left.

She waits a few moments until people being moving towards them, then turns and rests her palm flat on his pec, right over his heart. Strokes her own fingertips over the grid of letters that decorate his skin. PES. Peyton Elizabeth Scott. SBS. Sawyer Brooke Scott. RLS. Robert Lucas Scott.

Sawyer’s names a nod to Peyton’s maiden name, of course, and to her Godmother. Bobby’s names a nod to his Godparents, who also happen to be his aunt and uncle. When they’d announced that number two was a boy, Lucas knew right away his name would feature in there. Haley had been resigned to the fact that there really wasn’t a male version of Haley. But they’d surprised her, taking her ‘Bob’ and naming their son from that. She’d been tickled pink.

So … Peyton strokes that grid of letters again, and tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips.

“Enjoy all the adulation,” she teases. “I’m gonna go find my sister-in-law and our monsters.”  
“They’ll be being good as gold,” he chuckles. “They always are when they’re with Jamie and Lyd.”

“I know,” she shrugs before grinning and stepping back. “I just don’t need to see everyone stroking your ego for however long it takes for this thing to wind down.”

He mock gasps and presses his hand to the spot on his chest that she was just caressing.

“Cruel, Peyt,” he says, pouting. “You are so cruel to me.”

“You love it,” she retorts, winking then turning on her heel and virtually skipping along the stage.

She doesn’t get far before he stops her, lacing his fingers through hers and drawing her to a halt, turning her towards him, waggling his eyebrows at her and effortlessly bending her back over his arm.

“Nate!” she protests, before he silences her with a long, slow, dangerous kiss.

She’s blushing furiously when he rights her on her feet and God, he _loves_ that. After all these years, he can still get her flustered.

“What was that for?”

“’Cos we’re moving back to Tree Hill and you’re _gorgeous_ , and you’re _my_ wife, and I just wanted to make sure every single person here knows that we’re still the Nate and Peyt from Tree Hill High that they remember, and that nothing can ever stop that.”

“In other words, you’re staking your claim?”

“Babe,” he says, with a twinkle in his eye and a smile that still makes her heart race, “I staked my claim when we were fifteen years old.”

She rolls her eyes at him and he grins. She’s still that girl.

“I knew from the start,” he reminds her, “from fifteen.”

“Hmmm,” she counters, “almost. You knew from when we were nearly _seventeen.”_

“That’s when I _admitted_ I knew and _behaved_ like I knew.”

“Yeah? What else did you _know_ , oh great one?” she teases.

“Mom!”

“Mommy! Mommy.”

“Well hello, monsters,” she laughs, turning to watch the junior Scotts barrelling towards them, “I was just on my way to find you two.”  
“We found you instead!”

“I knew about them,” Nathan says, bending to murmur near her war. “I remember telling you we’d have two, and I said that before we even left high school.”

“Well then,” Peyton laughs as she jumps down of the low stage, takes Bobby’s hand in one of hers and Sawyer’s in the other, then turns to look up at him, her eyes shining, “I guess even _the best ball player to ever come out of North Carolina_ can’t be right about everything.”

“What?”

She takes a couple of steps backwards, the kids moving with her, excitedly telling them they’ll take her to where they found Jake and Jenny, that Aunt Haley and Jamie and Lyd are there too.

“Peyton!” he says firmly. “What the …?”  
She grins and winks, and takes another couple of steps backwards, still holding his gaze.

Lucas’ hand drops onto his brother’s shoulder and starts to turn him towards a patiently waiting group, but Nathan turns back, asking for just a second.

“Are you …?” he mouths at her.

She flashes those beautiful green eyes at him and removes her hand from Sawyer’s for just a second or two, rests her palm against her stomach for a moment, then raises it blow him a kiss.

He looks from her to Sawyer, to Bobby, then meets her gaze again.

She nods.

Indeed, the Scotts are coming home. All five of them.


End file.
